Смотрите репозитории, где я работаю

Вот один из способов:

HTML

<tr>
    <td>Select a File to Load:</td>
    <td><input type="file" id="fileToLoad"></td>
    <td><button onclick="loadFileAsText()">Load Selected File</button><td>
</tr>

JavaScript

function loadFileAsText(){
  var fileToLoad = document.getElementById("fileToLoad").files[0];

  var fileReader = new FileReader();
  fileReader.onload = function(fileLoadedEvent){
      var textFromFileLoaded = fileLoadedEvent.target.result;
      document.getElementById("inputTextToSave").value = textFromFileLoaded;
  };

  fileReader.readAsText(fileToLoad, "UTF-8");
}