Datatables - Search Box outside datatable

You can use the DataTables api to filter the table. So all you need is your own input field with a keyup event that triggers the filter function to DataTables. With css or jquery you can hide/remove the existing search input field. Or maybe DataTables has a setting to remove/not-include it.

Checkout the Datatables API documentation on this.

Example:

HTML

<input type="text" id="myInputTextField">

JS

oTable = $('#myTable').DataTable();   //pay attention to capital D, which is mandatory to retrieve "api" datatables' object, as @Lionel said$('#myInputTextField').keyup(function(){      oTable.search($(this).val()).draw() ;})

As per @lvkz comment :

if you are using datatable with uppercase d .DataTable() ( this will return a Datatable API object ) use this :

 oTable.search($(this).val()).draw() ;

which is @netbrain answer.

if you are using datatable with lowercase d .dataTable() ( this will return a jquery object ) use this :

 oTable.fnFilter($(this).val());

You can use the sDom option for this.

Default with search input in its own div:

sDom: '<"search-box"r>lftip'

If you use jQuery UI (bjQueryUI set to true):

sDom: '<"search-box"r><"H"lf>t<"F"ip>'

The above will put the search/filtering input element into it's own div with a class named search-box that is outside of the actual table.

Even though it uses its special shorthand syntax it can actually take any HTML you throw at it.