How to simulate a mouse click using JavaScript?

An easier and more standard way to simulate a mouse click would be directly using the event constructor to create an event and dispatch it.

Though the MouseEvent.initMouseEvent() method is kept for backward compatibility, creating of a MouseEvent object should be done using the MouseEvent() constructor.

var evt = new MouseEvent("click", {
    view: window,
    bubbles: true,
    cancelable: true,
    clientX: 20,
    /* whatever properties you want to give it */
});
targetElement.dispatchEvent(evt);

Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/DerekL/932wyok6/

This works on all modern browsers. For old browsers including IE, MouseEvent.initMouseEvent will have to be used unfortunately though it’s deprecated.

var evt = document.createEvent("MouseEvents");
evt.initMouseEvent("click", canBubble, cancelable, view,
                   detail, screenX, screenY, clientX, clientY,
                   ctrlKey, altKey, shiftKey, metaKey,
                   button, relatedTarget);
targetElement.dispatchEvent(evt);