How to read text from hidden element with Selenium WebDriver?

Answer 1

Building upon the work of the already given answers, I created this utility method (Java). Maybe this is helpful for someone else.

public static String getText(WebDriver driver, WebElement element){
    return (String) ((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript(
        "return jQuery(arguments[0]).text();", element);
}

• I use jQuery's text() to extract text nodes only. innerHTML would give you HTML tags as well.
• I use jQuery instead of $ in case of noConflict
• don't manipulate the element or it's visibility