JSFiddle - React, Tailwind, and code Playground

HTML

<div id="div-editable" contenteditable>
    <div style="cursor: text">https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3455931/extracting-text-from-a-contenteditable-div</div>
</div>

<input style="margin-top: 10px" type="button" value="ParseDIVText" onclick="parseDIVText();"/>

CSS

#div-editable
{
    -moz-appearance: textfield-multiline; 
    font: medium -moz-fixed;
    font: -webkit-small-control;
    font-size: 13px;
    overflow: hidden;
    min-height: 200px;
    width: 99%;
    border: solid 1px #5E54EF;
}

#div-editable div
{
   white-space: pre-wrap;      /* CSS3 */   
   white-space: -moz-pre-wrap; /* Firefox */    
   white-space: -pre-wrap;     /* Opera <7 */   
   white-space: -o-pre-wrap;   /* Opera 7 */    
   word-wrap: break-word;      /* IE */
}

JavaScript

function parseDIVText()
{ //FINAL ANSWER
    var domString = "", temp = "";
    
    $("#div-editable div").each(function(){
    	temp = $(this).html();
      domString += "<br>" + ((temp == "<br>") ? "" : temp);
    });
    
    alert(domString);
}