6104

For anchors that act like buttons (for example, the buttons on the sidebar of this Stack Overflow page titled Questions, Tags, and Users) or tabs, is there a CSS standard way to disable the highlighting effect if the user accidentally selects the text?

I realize that this could be done with JavaScript and a little googling yielded the Mozilla-only -moz-user-select option.

Is there a standard-compliant way to accomplish this with CSS, and if not, what is the "best practice" approach?

7
  • 11
    can elements within the element witch has highlighting disabled, have highlighting enabled with in css in the style or class attribute? or in other words, are there other values for -webkit-user-select ect. other than just none?
    – user659576
    Commented Mar 14, 2011 at 21:18
  • 11
    Related: stackoverflow.com/questions/16600479/… = how to allow only some of the child elements to be selected
    – JK.
    Commented May 17, 2013 at 2:36
  • 15
    There a bug in some browsers where doing "Select All" (CTRL+A and CMD+A) still selects things. This can be fought with a transparent selection color: ::selection { background: transparent; } ::-moz-selection { background: transparent; }
    – DaAwesomeP
    Commented Dec 12, 2014 at 1:03
  • 4
    In year 2017, it is better way to use postcss and autoprefixer and set browser version, then postcss make everything cool.
    – AmerllicA
    Commented Dec 6, 2017 at 11:47
  • 2
    The user interface changed. In 2019, all three mentioned items are now in a hamburger menu in the upper left. "Tags" and "Users" are in there, and "Questions" is now called "Stack Overflow" (with an icon in front). Commented Nov 24, 2019 at 12:23

45 Answers 45

8575
+50

UPDATE January, 2017:

According to Can I use, the user-select + -webkit-user-select for Safari is enough to achieve desired behavior in all major browsers.


These are all of the available correct CSS variations:

.noselect {
  -webkit-touch-callout: none; /* iOS Safari */
    -webkit-user-select: none; /* Safari */
     -khtml-user-select: none; /* Konqueror HTML */
       -moz-user-select: none; /* Old versions of Firefox */
        -ms-user-select: none; /* Internet Explorer/Edge */
            user-select: none; /* Non-prefixed version, currently
                                  supported by Chrome, Edge, Opera and Firefox */
}
<p>
  Selectable text.
</p>
<p class="noselect">
  Unselectable text.
</p>


Note that user-select is in standardization process (currently in a W3C working draft). It is not guaranteed to work everywhere and there might be differences in implementation among browsers. Also, browsers can drop support for it in the future.


More information can be found in Mozilla Developer Network documentation.

The values of this attribute are none, text, toggle, element, elements, all and inherit.

9
  • 44
    nice code molokoloco :D , although I personally would stay well away from using it, as sometimes you may need the values different for different browsers, and it relys on JavaScript. Making a class and adding it to your element or applying the css to your type of element in your style-sheet is pretty bullet proof.
    – Blowsie
    Commented Jan 14, 2011 at 13:07
  • 69
    'user-select'- Values: none | text | toggle | element | elements | all | inherit - w3.org/TR/2000/WD-css3-userint-20000216
    – Blowsie
    Commented Mar 21, 2011 at 9:44
  • 381
    this is ridiculous! so many different ways to do the same thing. let's make a new standard for user selects. we will call it standard-user-select. then we won't have these problems. although for backwards compatibility we should include the others as well. so now the code becomes -webkit-touch-callout: none; -webkit-user-select: none; -khtml-user-select: none; -moz-user-select: none; -ms-user-select: none; user-select: none; standard-user-select: none;. ah, much better.
    – Claudiu
    Commented Sep 4, 2012 at 16:19
  • 6
    According to caniuse it seems that it doesn't need those prefixes anymore.
    – aderchox
    Commented Jul 16, 2021 at 11:16
  • 5
    @aderchox In that case, caniuse.com is wrong. I still need the -webkit-user-select: none; line using Safari on iOS 15.1. Commented Oct 30, 2021 at 7:55
958
+50

In most browsers, this can be achieved using proprietary variations on the CSS user-select property, originally proposed and then abandoned in CSS 3 and now proposed in CSS UI Level 4:

*.unselectable {
   -moz-user-select: none;
   -khtml-user-select: none;
   -webkit-user-select: none;

   /*
     Introduced in Internet Explorer 10.
     See http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/HTML5/msUserSelect/
   */
   -ms-user-select: none;
   user-select: none;
}

For Internet Explorer < 10 and Opera < 15, you will need to use the unselectable attribute of the element you wish to be unselectable. You can set this using an attribute in HTML:

<div id="foo" unselectable="on" class="unselectable">...</div>

Sadly this property isn't inherited, meaning you have to put an attribute in the start tag of every element inside the <div>. If this is a problem, you could instead use JavaScript to do this recursively for an element's descendants:

function makeUnselectable(node) {
    if (node.nodeType == 1) {
        node.setAttribute("unselectable", "on");
    }
    var child = node.firstChild;
    while (child) {
        makeUnselectable(child);
        child = child.nextSibling;
    }
}

makeUnselectable(document.getElementById("foo"));

Update 30 April 2014: This tree traversal needs to be rerun whenever a new element is added to the tree, but it seems from a comment by @Han that it is possible to avoid this by adding a mousedown event handler that sets unselectable on the target of the event. See http://jsbin.com/yagekiji/1 for details.


This still doesn't cover all possibilities. While it is impossible to initiate selections in unselectable elements, in some browsers (Internet Explorer and Firefox, for example) it's still impossible to prevent selections that start before and end after the unselectable element without making the whole document unselectable.

1
  • 23
    Instead of using the class="unselectable", just use the attribute selector [unselectable="on"] { … }
    – Chris Calo
    Commented Jan 26, 2012 at 19:39
236

Until CSS 3's user-select property becomes available, Gecko-based browsers support the -moz-user-select property you already found. WebKit and Blink-based browsers support the -webkit-user-select property.

This of course is not supported in browsers that do not use the Gecko rendering engine.

There is no "standards" compliant quick-and-easy way to do it; using JavaScript is an option.

The real question is, why do you want users to not be able to highlight and presumably copy and paste certain elements? I have not come across a single time that I wanted to not let users highlight a certain portion of my website. Several of my friends, after spending many hours reading and writing code will use the highlight feature as a way to remember where on the page they were, or providing a marker so that their eyes know where to look next.

The only place I could see this being useful is if you have buttons for forms that should not be copy and pasted if a user copy and pasted the website.

3
  • This may be necessary for embedded devices. i.e. a device where a browser is used for rendering the UI. Commented Nov 4, 2009 at 12:05
  • 37
    Another reason this is needed is Shift-clicking to select multiple rows in a grid or table. You don't want to to highlight the text, you want it to select the rows. Commented Jan 6, 2010 at 16:08
  • 41
    Highly interactive web app with a lot of drag & drop... accidental highlighting is a big usability problem. Commented Jun 3, 2014 at 21:08
211

A JavaScript solution for Internet Explorer is:

onselectstart="return false;"
1
  • 62
    Don’t forget about ondragstart! Commented May 26, 2010 at 13:25
161

If you want to disable text selection on everything except on <p> elements, you can do this in CSS (watch out for the -moz-none which allows override in sub-elements, which is allowed in other browsers with none):

* {
    -webkit-user-select: none;
    -khtml-user-select: none;
    -moz-user-select: -moz-none;
    -o-user-select: none;
    user-select: none;
}

p {
    -webkit-user-select: text;
    -khtml-user-select: text;
    -moz-user-select: text;
    -o-user-select: text;
    user-select: text;
}
5
  • 14
    Make sure you also make input fields selectable: p, input { -webkit-user-select: text; -khtml-user-select: text; -moz-user-select: text; -o-user-select: text; user-select: text; } Commented Jul 7, 2011 at 22:39
  • 13
    Be very wary about turning off browser UI expectations on ALL code except for one item. What about list items <li /> text, for example?
    – Jason
    Commented Nov 12, 2011 at 7:13
  • Just an update... according to MDN since Firefox 21 -moz-none and none are the same. Commented Dec 25, 2013 at 15:56
  • 3
    For this you may add cursor:default and cursor:text respectively : )
    – T4NK3R
    Commented Jul 14, 2014 at 17:14
  • THE bomb. That is to say. THE END. ul>* { -webkit-user-select: none; -khtml-user-select: none; -moz-user-select: -moz-none; -o-user-select: none; user-select: none; } [selects everything in an unordered list, and makes it un-selectable, rather than trashing the whole view tree.] Thanks for the lesson. My button list is looking great, and responding correctly to screen tapping and pressing, rather than launching an IME (android clipboard widgets). Commented Sep 12, 2019 at 6:54
144

In the solutions in previous answers selection is stopped, but the user still thinks you can select text because the cursor still changes. To keep it static, you'll have to set your CSS cursor:

.noselect {
    cursor: default;
    -webkit-touch-callout: none;
    -webkit-user-select: none;
    -khtml-user-select: none;
    -moz-user-select: none;
    -ms-user-select: none;
    user-select: none;
}
<p>
  Selectable text.
</p>
<p class="noselect">
  Unselectable text.
</p>

This will make your text totally flat, like it would be in a desktop application.

3
  • "Flat" as opposed to what?
    – kojow7
    Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 20:55
  • @kojow7 As opposed to "layered". Instead of text floating on top of the other elements. It is similar to the difference between SVG and PNG images.
    – Yeti
    Commented Sep 19, 2018 at 9:35
  • 6
    Was surprised to discover that Firefox still requires the vendor prefix in 2019. I disregardfully used only user-select: none;, thinking the standard would be adopted by now, but sadly it has not. Makes you wonder what the people on the standards committee could still be debating. "No, you guys... I really think it should be user-select: cant; because it's like more descriptive, you know?" "We've been over this, Mike. We would have to omit the apostrophe, and that's bad form!" "Enough, everyone! We will deliberate on this matter again next month. Standards Committee meeting adjourned!"
    – Mentalist
    Commented May 24, 2019 at 3:19
123

You can do so in Firefox and Safari (Chrome also?)

::selection { background: transparent; }
::-moz-selection { background: transparent; }
2
  • 133
    I wouldn't recommend doing this, because it doesn't actually fix the issue; disabling text selection - it merely hides it. This can lead to bad usability, because if I drag my cursor around the page I could be selecting any arbitrary text without knowing it. This can cause all kinds of weird usability "bugs".
    – Keithamus
    Commented Feb 2, 2011 at 15:01
  • 3
    Doesn't work on PNG-images with transparent areas: The will always select in a light blue… Any workaround?
    – AvL
    Commented Sep 18, 2013 at 21:12
92

Workaround for WebKit:

/* Disable tap highlighting */
-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);

I found it in a CardFlip example.

1
  • 2
    Using transparent in lieu of rgba also works in Chrome 42 on Android. Commented Apr 29, 2015 at 20:46
89

I like the hybrid CSS + jQuery solution.

To make all elements inside <div class="draggable"></div> unselectable, use this CSS:

.draggable {
    -webkit-user-select: none;
     -khtml-user-select: none;
       -moz-user-select: none;
        -ms-user-select: none;
         -o-user-select: none;
            user-select: none;
}

.draggable input {
    -webkit-user-select: text;
     -khtml-user-select: text;
       -moz-user-select: text;
         -o-user-select: text;
            user-select: text;
 }

And then, if you're using jQuery, add this inside a $(document).ready() block:

if (($.browser.msie && $.browser.version < 10) || $.browser.opera) $('.draggable').find(':not(input)').attr('unselectable', 'on');

I figure you still want any input elements to be interactable, hence the :not() pseudo-selector. You could use '*' instead if you don't care.

Caveat: Internet Explorer 9 may not need this extra jQuery piece, so you may want to add a version check in there.

7
  • 7
    Use -ms-user-select: none; (for IE10) and your jQuery "if" should be this: if (($.browser.msie && $.browser.version < 10) || $.browser.opera)
    – mhenry1384
    Commented Jan 31, 2013 at 3:42
  • Be careful man !!! To make it selectable in firefox you must use -moz-user-select: Normal; Commented Mar 10, 2013 at 16:53
  • 9
    @mhenry1384 jQuery.browser has been deprecated as of version 1.3 and has been removed in version 1.9 - api.jquery.com/jQuery.browser
    – WynandB
    Commented Mar 14, 2013 at 23:58
  • @Wynand Good point. But what sort of "feature detection" exists to determine which CSS property to use?
    – Tom Auger
    Commented Mar 15, 2013 at 13:28
  • @TomAuger You could use jQuery.support, it allows you to check for single features : Link
    – Aequanox
    Commented Mar 28, 2013 at 10:10
82

You can use CSS or JavaScript for that.

The JavaScript way is supported in older browsers, like old versions of Internet Explorer as well, but if it's not your case, use the CSS way then:

HTML/JavaScript:

<html onselectstart='return false;'>
  <body>
    <h1>This is the Heading!</h1>
    <p>And I'm the text, I won't be selected if you select me.</p>
  </body>
</html>

HTML/CSS:

.not-selectable {
  -webkit-touch-callout: none;
  -webkit-user-select: none;
  -khtml-user-select: none;
  -moz-user-select: none;
  -ms-user-select: none;
  user-select: none;
}
<body class="not-selectable">
  <h1>This is the Heading!</h1>
  <p>And I'm the text, I won't be selected if you select me.</p>
</body>

0
79

.hidden:after {
    content: attr(data-txt);
}
<p class="hidden" data-txt="Some text you don't want to be selected"></p>

It's not the best way, though.

5
  • 3
    You could also use title as the attribute.
    – Toothbrush
    Commented May 7, 2014 at 16:50
  • 7
    That is a very creative solution. Especially if it used the title attribute because that would probably be better for screen readers. Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 21:49
  • 4
    I tried it (JSBin) and it doesn't work in IE. Unfortunately older IEs are the only ones that user-select doesn't work for. Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 21:58
  • 1
    This is a great non-JS alternative that works in Chrome! Awesome!
    – saricden
    Commented Nov 6, 2018 at 15:05
  • This was what I needed to prevent actual selection rather than just preventing the display of selection. Commented Sep 16, 2021 at 21:12
68

For Internet Explorer in addition, you need to add pseudo class focus (.ClassName:focus) and outline-style: none.

.ClassName,
.ClassName:focus {
    -webkit-touch-callout: none;
    -webkit-user-select: none;
    -khtml-user-select: none;
    -moz-user-select: none;
    -ms-user-select: none;
    user-select: none;
    outline-style: none; /* Internet Explorer  */
}
1
  • 3
    This does work in IE so long as the selection starts on an element with the className class. See this JSBin. Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 22:01
64

Try to insert these rows into the CSS and call the "disHighlight" at class property:

.disHighlight {
    user-select: none;
    -webkit-user-select: none;
    -ms-user-select: none;
    -webkit-touch-callout: none;
    -o-user-select: none;
    -moz-user-select: none;
}
0
63

A Quick Hack Update

If you use the value none for all the CSS user-select properties (including browser prefixes of it), there is a problem which can be still occurred by this.

.div {
    -webkit-user-select: none; /* Chrome all / Safari all */
    -moz-user-select: none;    /* Firefox all             */
    -ms-user-select: none;     /* Internet Explorer  10+  */
     user-select: none;        /* Likely future           */
}

As CSS-Tricks says, the problem is:

WebKit still allows the text to be copied, if you select elements around it.

You can also use the below one to enforce that an entire element gets selected which means if you click on an element, all the text wrapped in that element will get selected. For this all you have to do is changing the value none to all.

.force-select {
    -webkit-user-select: all;  /* Chrome 49+     */
    -moz-user-select: all;     /* Firefox 43+    */
    -ms-user-select: all;      /* No support yet */
    user-select: all;          /* Likely future  */
}
0
57

With SASS (SCSS syntax)

You can do this with a mixin:

// Disable selection
@mixin disable-selection {
    -webkit-touch-callout: none; /* iOS Safari */
    -webkit-user-select: none;   /* Safari */
    -khtml-user-select: none;    /* Konqueror HTML */
    -moz-user-select: none;      /* Firefox */
    -ms-user-select: none;       /* Internet Explorer/Edge */
    user-select: none;           /* Non-prefixed version, currently supported by Chrome and Opera */
}

// No selectable element
.no-selectable {
    @include disable-selection;
}

In an HTML tag:

<div class="no-selectable">TRY TO HIGHLIGHT. YOU CANNOT!</div>

Try it in this CodePen.

If you are using an autoprefixer you can remove other prefixes.

Browser compatibility here.

54

For those who have trouble achieving the same in the Android browser with the touch event, use:

html, body {
    -webkit-touch-callout: none;
    -webkit-user-select: none;
    -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);
    -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;
}
0
51

If you are using Less and Bootstrap you could write:

.user-select(none);
50
-webkit-user-select: none;
-khtml-user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
-o-user-select: none;
user-select: none;

*.unselectable {
   -moz-user-select: -moz-none;
   -khtml-user-select: none;
   -webkit-user-select: none;
   user-select: none;
}
<div id="foo" unselectable="on" class="unselectable">...</div>
function makeUnselectable(node) {
    if (node.nodeType == 1) {
        node.unselectable = true;
    }
    var child = node.firstChild;
    while (child) {
        makeUnselectable(child);
        child = child.nextSibling;
    }
}

makeUnselectable(document.getElementById("foo"));
-webkit-user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
onselectstart="return false;"
::selection { 
    background: transparent; 
}

::-moz-selection { 
    background: transparent; 
}

* {
    -webkit-user-select: none;
    -khtml-user-select: none;
    -moz-user-select: -moz-none;
    -o-user-select: none;
    user-select: none;
}

p {
    -webkit-user-select: text;
    -khtml-user-select: text;
    -moz-user-select: text;
    -o-user-select: text;
    user-select: text;
}
<div class="draggable"></div>
.draggable {
    -webkit-user-select: none;
    -khtml-user-select: none;
    -moz-user-select: none;
    -o-user-select: none;
    user-select: none;
}

.draggable input {
    -webkit-user-select: text;
    -khtml-user-select: text;
    -moz-user-select: text;
    -o-user-select: text;
    user-select: text;
 }
if ($.browser.msie)
    $('.draggable').find(':not(input)').attr('unselectable', 'on');
39

Aside from the Mozilla-only property, no, there is no way to disable text selection with just standard CSS (as of now).

If you notice, Stack Overflow doesn't disable text selection for their navigation buttons, and I would recommend against doing so in most cases, since it modifies normal selection behavior and makes it conflict with a user's expectations.

7
  • While I agree that it changes behaviour the user expects, it would make sense for things like the "Add Comment" button that is sitting next to this form field ...
    – X-Istence
    Commented May 5, 2009 at 20:40
  • But doesn't that expose needless implementation details? An input or button's text can't be selected.
    – anon
    Commented May 5, 2009 at 20:40
  • @anon: Most users will probably not try to select the text of your button, so in practice, it shouldn't really matter much. Besides, in order to do so, they will have to start selecting outside of the button—if they click inside the button itself, the onclick handler will activate instead. Plus, certain browsers (e.g. Safari) actually let you select the text of normal buttons…
    – hbw
    Commented May 5, 2009 at 20:49
  • 8
    If you're selecting a set of comments from a chat thread and each comment has an upvote/downvote button next to it, then it would be nice to select the text without the other stuff. That's what the user expects or wants. He doesn't want to copy/paste the button labels with every comment.
    – Mnebuerquo
    Commented Aug 3, 2013 at 16:52
  • 2
    And what if you for example double click a button which instead of redirecting you to another page opens a div? then the text for the button will be selected due to the double-click!
    – Gigala
    Commented Jul 25, 2014 at 11:32
38

This works in some browsers:

::selection{ background-color: transparent;}
::moz-selection{ background-color: transparent;}
::webkit-selection{ background-color: transparent;}

Simply add your desired elements/ids in front of the selectors separated by commas without spaces, like so:

h1::selection,h2::selection,h3::selection,p::selection{ background-color: transparent;}
h1::moz-selection,h2::moz-selection,h3::moz-selection,p::moz-selection{ background-color: transparent;}
h1::webkit-selection,h2::webkit-selection,h3::webkit-selection,p::webkit-selection{ background-color: transparent;}

The other answers are better; this should probably be seen as a last resort/catchall.

1
  • 4
    There are few things that can be known for sure, but this solution definitely doesn't work in all browsers.
    – Volker E.
    Commented Sep 30, 2014 at 9:27
37

Suppose there are two divs like this:

.second {
  cursor: default;
  user-select: none;
  -webkit-user-select: none;
  /* Chrome/Safari/Opera */
  -moz-user-select: none;
  /* Firefox */
  -ms-user-select: none;
  /* Internet Explorer/Edge */
  -webkit-touch-callout: none;
  /* iOS Safari */
}
<div class="first">
  This is my first div
</div>

<div class="second">
  This is my second div
</div>

Set cursor to default so that it will give a unselectable feel to the user.

Prefix need to be used to support it in all browsers. Without a prefix this may not work in all the answers.

33

This will be useful if color selection is also not needed:

::-moz-selection { background:none; color:none; }
::selection { background:none; color:none; }

...all other browser fixes. It will work in Internet Explorer 9 or later.

2
  • 1
    Make that color: inherit; maybe.
    – yaakov
    Commented Jul 28, 2016 at 1:25
  • yeah I love it. It's css selector level 3 according to Mozilla docs Commented Jan 28, 2018 at 10:37
32

Add this to the first div in which you want to disable the selection for text:

onmousedown='return false;' 
onselectstart='return false;'
30

NOTE:

The correct answer is correct in that it prevents you from being able to select the text. However, it does not prevent you from being able to copy the text, as I'll show with the next couple of screenshots (as of 7th Nov 2014).

Before we have selected anything

After we have selected

The numbers have been copied

As you can see, we were unable to select the numbers, but we were able to copy them.

Tested on: Ubuntu, Google Chrome 38.0.2125.111.

1
  • 1
    I've had the same problem. On Mac Chrome 48.0.2564.116 and on Mac Safari 9.0.3. Notably, Mac Firefox 43.0 doesn't copy the character, but sticks extra endlines between them. What should be done about this?
    – NHDaly
    Commented Mar 5, 2016 at 1:34
28

It is easily done with:

-webkit-user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
-ms-user-select: none;
-o-user-select: none;
user-select: none;

Alternatively:

Let's say you have a <h1 id="example">Hello, World!</h1>. You will have to remove the innerHTML of that h1, in this case Hello, World. Then you will have to go to CSS and do this:

#example::before // You can of course use **::after** as well.
{
    content: 'Hello, World!'; // Both single-quotes and double-quotes can be used here.

    display: block; // To make sure it works fine in every browser.
}

Now it simply thinks it is a block-element, and not text.

27

To get the result I needed, I found I had to use both ::selection and user-select

input.no-select:focus {
    -webkit-touch-callout: none;
    -webkit-user-select: none;
    -khtml-user-select: none;
    -moz-user-select: none;
    -ms-user-select: none;
    user-select: none;
}

input.no-select::selection {
    background: transparent;
}

input.no-select::-moz-selection {
    background: transparent;
}
0
23

This is not CSS, but it is worth a mention:

jQuery UI Disable Selection:

$("your.selector").disableSelection();
0
21

Check my solution without JavaScript:

jsFiddle

li:hover {
    background-color: silver;
}
#id1:before {
    content: "File";
}
#id2:before {
    content: "Edit";
}
#id3:before {
    content: "View";
}
<ul>
    <li><a id="id1" href="www.w1.com"></a>
    <li><a id="id2" href="www.w2.com"></a>
    <li><a id="id3" href="www.w3.com"></a>
</ul>

Popup menu with my technique applied: http://jsfiddle.net/y4Lac/2/

0
21

I have learned from the CSS-Tricks website.

user-select: none;

And this also:

::selection {
    background-color: transparent;
}

::moz-selection {
    background-color: transparent;
}

::webkit-selection {
    background-color: transparent;
}
1
  • 1
    It only makes it invisible Commented Jun 29, 2021 at 11:54
21

FIRST METHOD: ( TOTALLY NONSENSE ):

.no-select::selection, .no-select *::selection {
  background-color: Transparent;
}

.no-select { /* Sometimes I add this too. */
  cursor: default;
}
<span>RixTheTyrunt is da best!</span>
<br>
<span class="no-select">RixTheTyrunt is da best!</span>

Snippet:

.no-select::selection, .no-select *::selection {
  background-color: Transparent;
}

.no-select {
  /* Sometimes I add this too. */
  cursor: default;
}
<span>RixTheTyrunt is da best!</span>
<br>
<span class="no-select">RixTheTyrunt is da best!</span>

SECOND METHOD ( NO NONSENSE INCLUDED )

.no-select {
  user-select: none;
  -moz-user-select: none;
  -webkit-user-select: none;
}

Snippet:

.no-select {
  user-select: none;
  -moz-user-select: none;
  -webkit-user-select: none;
}
<span>RixTheTyrunt is da best!</span>
<br>
<span class="no-select">RixTheTyrunt is da best!</span>

First, solve the problem. Then, write the code.

John Johnson