How to prevent ENTER keypress to submit a web form?

[revision 2012, no inline handler, preserve textarea enter handling]

function checkEnter(e){
 e = e || event;
 var txtArea = /textarea/i.test((e.target || e.srcElement).tagName);
 return txtArea || (e.keyCode || e.which || e.charCode || 0) !== 13;
}

Now you can define a keypress handler on the form:
<form [...] onkeypress="return checkEnter(event)">

document.querySelector('form').onkeypress = checkEnter;

[revision 2024, A somewhat more modern (ES20xx) approach, using event delegation]

document.addEventListener(`keypress`, handle);

function handle(evt) {
  const form = evt.target.closest(`#testForm`);
  if (form) {
    if (evt.target.dataset.enterForSubmit) {
      if (evt.key === `Enter`) {
        evt.preventDefault();
        return logClear(`won't submit "${evt.target.value}"`);
      }
      return true;
    }
  }
}

function logClear(...txt) {
  console.clear();
  console.log(...txt);
}

input {
  width: 90vw;
}

<form id="testForm" action="https://www.google.com/search">
  <input data-enter-for-submit="1" 
    placeholder="enter text, try using enter to submit">
</form>

Here is a jQuery handler that can be used to stop enter submits, and also stop backspace key -> back. The (keyCode: selectorString) pairs in the "keyStop" object are used to match nodes that shouldn't fire their default action.

Remember that the web should be an accessible place, and this is breaking keyboard users' expectations. That said, in my case the web application I am working on doesn't like the back button anyway, so disabling its key shortcut is OK. The "should enter -> submit" discussion is important, but not related to the actual question asked.

Here is the code, up to you to think about accessibility and why you would actually want to do this!

$(function(){
 var keyStop = {
   8: ":not(input:text, textarea, input:file, input:password)", // stop backspace = back
   13: "input:text, input:password", // stop enter = submit 

   end: null
 };
 $(document).bind("keydown", function(event){
  var selector = keyStop[event.which];

  if(selector !== undefined && $(event.target).is(selector)) {
      event.preventDefault(); //stop event
  }
  return true;
 });
});

Simply return false from the onsubmit handler

<form onsubmit="return false;">

or if you want a handler in the middle

<script>
var submitHandler = function() {
  // do stuff
  return false;
}
</script>
<form onsubmit="return submitHandler()">

//Turn off submit on "Enter" key

$("form").bind("keypress", function (e) {
    if (e.keyCode == 13) {
        $("#btnSearch").attr('value');
        //add more buttons here
        return false;
    }
});

You will have to call this function whic will just cancel the default submit behaviour of the form. You can attach it to any input field or event.

function doNothing() {  
var keyCode = event.keyCode ? event.keyCode : event.which ? event.which : event.charCode;
    if( keyCode == 13 ) {


    if(!e) var e = window.event;

    e.cancelBubble = true;
    e.returnValue = false;

    if (e.stopPropagation) {
        e.stopPropagation();
        e.preventDefault();
    }
}

In short answer in pure Javascript is:

<script type="text/javascript">
    window.addEventListener('keydown', function(e) {
        if (e.keyIdentifier == 'U+000A' || e.keyIdentifier == 'Enter' || e.keyCode == 13) {
            if (e.target.nodeName == 'INPUT' && e.target.type == 'text') {
                e.preventDefault();
                return false;
            }
        }
    }, true);
</script>

This only disables the "Enter" keypress action for input type='text'. Visitors can still use "Enter" key all over the website.

If you want to disable "Enter" for other actions as well, you can add console.log(e); for your your test purposes, and hit F12 in chrome, go to "console" tab and hit "backspace" on the page and look inside it to see what values are returned, then you can target all of those parameters to further enhance the code above to suit your needs for "e.target.nodeName", "e.target.type" and many more...

See my detailed answer for a similar question here

The ENTER key merely activates the form's default submit button, which will be the first

<input type="submit" />

the browser finds within the form.

Therefore don't have a submit button, but something like

<input type="button" value="Submit" onclick="submitform()" /> 

EDIT: In response to discussion in comments:

This doesn't work if you have only one text field - but it may be that is the desired behaviour in that case.

The other issue is that this relies on Javascript to submit the form. This may be a problem from an accessibility point of view. This can be solved by writing the <input type='button'/> with javascript, and then put an <input type='submit' /> within a <noscript> tag. The drawback of this approach is that for javascript-disabled browsers you will then have form submissions on ENTER. It is up to the OP to decide what is the desired behaviour in this case.

I know of no way of doing this without invoking javascript at all.

I've always done it with a keypress handler like the above in the past, but today hit on a simpler solution. The enter key just triggers the first non-disabled submit button on the form, so actually all that's required is to intercept that button trying to submit:

<form>
  <div style="display: none;">
    <input type="submit" name="prevent-enter-submit" onclick="return false;">
  </div>
  <!-- rest of your form markup -->
</form>

That's it. Keypresses will be handled as usual by the browser / fields / etc. If the enter-submit logic is triggered, then the browser will find that hidden submit button and trigger it. And the javascript handler will then prevent the submision.

All the answers I found on this subject, here or in other posts has one drawback and that is it prevents the actual change trigger on the form element as well. So if you run these solutions onchange event is not triggered as well. To overcome this problem I modified these codes and developed the following code for myself. I hope this becomes useful for others. I gave a class to my form "prevent_auto_submit" and added the following JavaScript:

$(document).ready(function() 
{
    $('form.prevent_auto_submit input,form.prevent_auto_submit select').keypress(function(event) 
    { 
        if (event.keyCode == 13)
        {
            event.preventDefault();
            $(this).trigger("change");
        }
    });
});

I've spent some time making this cross browser for IE8,9,10, Opera 9+, Firefox 23, Safari (PC) and Safari(MAC)

JSFiddle Example: http://jsfiddle.net/greatbigmassive/ZyeHe/

Base code - Call this function via "onkeypress" attached to your form and pass "window.event" into it.

function stopEnterSubmitting(e) {
    if (e.keyCode == 13) {
        var src = e.srcElement || e.target;
        if (src.tagName.toLowerCase() != "textarea") {
            if (e.preventDefault) {
                e.preventDefault();
            } else {
                e.returnValue = false;
            }
        }
    }
}

stopSubmitOnEnter (e) {
  var eve = e || window.event;
  var keycode = eve.keyCode || eve.which || eve.charCode;

  if (keycode == 13) {
    eve.cancelBubble = true;
    eve.returnValue = false;

    if (eve.stopPropagation) {   
      eve.stopPropagation();
      eve.preventDefault();
    }

    return false;
  }
}

Then on your form:

<form id="foo" onkeypress="stopSubmitOnEnter(e);">

Though, it would be better if you didn't use obtrusive JavaScript.

Preventing "ENTER" to submit form may inconvenience some of your users. So it would be better if you follow the procedure below:

Write the 'onSubmit' event in your form tag:

<form name="formname" id="formId" onSubmit="return testSubmit()" ...>
 ....
 ....
 ....
</form>

write Javascript function as follows:

function testSubmit(){
  if(jQuery("#formId").valid())
      {
        return true;
      }
       return false;

     } 

     (OR)

What ever the reason, if you want to prevent the form submission on pressing Enter key, you can write the following function in javascript:

    $(document).ready(function() {
          $(window).keydown(function(event){
          if(event.keyCode == 13) {
               event.preventDefault();
               return false;
              }
           });
         });

thanks.

To prevent form submit when pressing enter in a textarea or input field, check the submit event to find what type of element sent the event.

Example 1

HTML

<button type="submit" form="my-form">Submit</button>
<form id="my-form">
...
</form>

jQuery

$(document).on('submit', 'form', function(e) {
    if (e.delegateTarget.activeElement.type!=="submit") {
        e.preventDefault();
    }
});

A better solution is if you don't have a submit button and you fire the event with a normal button. It is better because in the first examlple 2 submit events are fired, but in the second example only 1 submit event is fired.

Example 2

HTML

<button type="button" onclick="$('#my-form').submit();">Submit</button>
<form id="my-form">
...
</form>

jQuery

$(document).on('submit', 'form', function(e) {
    if (e.delegateTarget.activeElement.localName!=="button") {
        e.preventDefault();
    }
});

In my case, this jQuery JavaScript solved the problem

jQuery(function() {
            jQuery("form.myform").submit(function(event) {
               event.preventDefault();
               return false;
            });
}

Please check this article How to prevent ENTER keypress to submit a web form?

$(“.pc_prevent_submit”).ready(function() {
  $(window).keydown(function(event) {
    if (event.keyCode == 13) {
      event.preventDefault();
      return false;
    }
  });
});

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<form class=”pc_prevent_submit” action=”” method=”post”>
  <input type=”text” name=”username”>
  <input type=”password” name=”userpassword”>
  <input type=”submit” value=”submit”>
</form>

You will find this more simple and useful :D

$(document).on('submit', 'form', function(e){
    /* on form submit find the trigger */
    if( $(e.delegateTarget.activeElement).not('input, textarea').length == 0 ){
        /* if the trigger is not between selectors list, return super false */
        e.preventDefault();
        return false;
    } 
});

Add this tag to your form - onsubmit="return false;" Then you can only submit your form with some JavaScript function.

You can trap the keydown on a form in javascript and prevent the even bubbling, I think. ENTER on a webpage basically just submits the form that the currently selected control is placed in.

Another approach is to append the submit input button to the form only when it is supposed to be submited and replace it by a simple div during the form filling

Simply add this attribute to your FORM tag:

onsubmit="return gbCanSubmit;"

Then, in your SCRIPT tag, add this:

var gbCanSubmit = false;

Then, when you make a button or for any other reason (like in a function) you finally permit a submit, simply flip the global boolean and do a .submit() call, similar to this example:

function submitClick(){

  // error handler code goes here and return false if bad data

  // okay, proceed...
  gbCanSubmit = true;
  $('#myform').submit(); // jQuery example

}

How about:

<script>
function isok(e) {
  var name = e.explicitOriginalTarget.name;
  if (name == "button") {
    return true
  }
  return false;
}
</script>
<form onsubmit="return isok(event);">
<input type="text" name="serial"/>
<input type="submit" name="button" value="Create Thing"/>
</form>

And just name your button right and it will still submit, but text fields i.e. the explicitOriginalTarget when you hit return in one, will not have the right name.

Here's how I'd do it:

window.addEventListener('keydown', function(event)
{
    if (event.key === "Enter" && event.target.tagName !== 'TEXTAREA')
    {
        if(event.target.type !== 'submit')
        {
            event.preventDefault();
            return false;
        }
    }
});

If none of those answers are working for you, try this. Add a submit button before the one that actually submits the form and just do nothing with the event.

HTML

<!-- The following button is meant to do nothing. This button will catch the "enter" key press and stop it's propagation. -->
<button type="submit" id="EnterKeyIntercepter" style="cursor: auto; outline: transparent;"></button>

JavaScript

$('#EnterKeyIntercepter').click((event) => {
    event.preventDefault(); //The buck stops here.
    /*If you don't know what this if statement does, just delete it.*/
    if (process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'production') {
        console.log("The enter key was pressed and captured by the mighty Enter Key Inceptor (⌐■_■)");
    }
});

This worked for me.
onkeydown="return !(event.keyCode==13)"

    <form id="form1" runat="server" onkeydown="return !(event.keyCode==13)">

   </form>

I had the same problem (forms with tons of text fields and unskilled users).

I solved it in this way:

function chkSubmit() {
    if (window.confirm('Do you want to store the data?')) {
        return true;
    } else {
        // some code to focus on a specific field
        return false;
    }
}

using this in the HTML code:

<form
    action="go.php" 
    method="post"
    accept-charset="utf-8"  
    enctype="multipart/form-data"
    onsubmit="return chkSubmit()"
>

In this way the ENTER key works as planned, but a confirmation (a second ENTER tap, usually) is required.

I leave to the readers the quest for a script sending the user in the field where he pressed ENTER if he decide to stay on the form.