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capture-website

Capture screenshots of websites

It uses Puppeteer (Chrome) under the hood.

See capture-website-cli for the command-line tool.

Install

npm install capture-website

Note to Linux users: If you get a sandbox-related error, you need to enable system sandboxing.

Usage

import captureWebsite from 'capture-website';

await captureWebsite.file('https://sindresorhus.com', 'screenshot.png');

API

captureWebsite.file(input, outputFilePath, options?)

Capture a screenshot of the given input and save it to the given outputFilePath.

Intermediate directories are created for you if they do not exist.

Returns a Promise<void> that resolves when the screenshot is written.

captureWebsite.buffer(input, options?)

Capture a screenshot of the given input.

Returns a Promise<Buffer> with the screenshot as binary.

captureWebsite.base64(input, options?)

Capture a screenshot of the given input.

Returns a Promise<string> with the screenshot as Base64.

input

Type: string

The URL, file URL, data URL, local file path to the website, or HTML.

import captureWebsite from 'capture-website';

await captureWebsite.file('index.html', 'local-file.png');

options

Type: object

inputType

Type: string
Default: 'url'
Values: 'url' | 'html'

Set it to html to treat input as HTML content.

import captureWebsite from 'capture-website';

await captureWebsite.file('<h1>Awesome!</h1>', 'screenshot.png', {
	inputType: 'html'
});
width

Type: number
Default: 1280

Page width.

height

Type: number
Default: 800

Page height.

type

Type: string
Values: 'png' | 'jpeg' | 'webp'
Default: 'png'

Image type.

quality

Type: number
Values: 0...1
Default: 1

Image quality. Only for {type: 'jpeg'} and {type: 'webp'}.

scaleFactor

Type: number
Default: 2

Scale the webpage n times.

The default is what you would get if you captured a normal screenshot on a computer with a retina (High DPI) screen.

emulateDevice

Type: string
Values: Devices (Use the name property)

Make it look like the screenshot was taken on the specified device.

This overrides the width, height, scaleFactor, and userAgent options.

import captureWebsite from 'capture-website';

await captureWebsite.file('https://sindresorhus.com', 'screenshot.png', {
	emulateDevice: 'iPhone X'
});
fullPage

Type: boolean
Default: false

Capture the full scrollable page, not just the viewport.

defaultBackground

Type: boolean
Default: true

Include the default white background.

Disabling this lets you capture screenshots with transparency.

timeout

Type: number (seconds)
Default: 60

The number of seconds before giving up trying to load the page.

Specify 0 to disable the timeout.

delay

Type: number (seconds)
Default: 0

The number of seconds to wait after the page finished loading before capturing the screenshot.

This can be useful if you know the page has animations that you like it to finish before capturing the screenshot.

waitForElement

Type: string

Wait for a DOM element matching the given CSS selector to appear in the page and to be visible before capturing the screenshot. It times out after options.timeout seconds.

element

Type: string

Capture the DOM element matching the given CSS selector. It will wait for the element to appear in the page and to be visible. It times out after options.timeout seconds. Any actions performed as part of options.beforeScreenshot occur before this.

hideElements

Type: string[]

Hide DOM elements matching the given CSS selectors.

Can be useful for cleaning up the page.

This sets visibility: hidden on the matched elements.

import captureWebsite from 'capture-website';

await captureWebsite.file('https://sindresorhus.com', 'screenshot.png', {
	hideElements: [
		'#sidebar',
		'img.ad'
	]
});
removeElements

Type: string[]

Remove DOM elements matching the given CSS selectors.

This sets display: none on the matched elements, so it could potentially break the website layout.

clickElement

Type: string

Click the DOM element matching the given CSS selector.

scrollToElement

Type: string | object

Scroll to the DOM element matching the given CSS selector.

element

Type: string

A CSS selector.

offsetFrom

Type: string
Values: 'top' | 'right' | 'bottom' | 'left'

Offset origin.

offset

Type: number

Offset in pixels.

disableAnimations

Type: boolean
Default: false

Disable CSS animations and transitions.

blockAds

Type: boolean
Default: true

Ad blocking.

isJavaScriptEnabled

Type: boolean
Default: true

Whether JavaScript on the website should be executed.

This does not affect the scripts and modules options.

modules

Type: string[]

Inject JavaScript modules into the page.

Accepts an array of inline code, absolute URLs, and local file paths (must have a .js extension).

import captureWebsite from 'capture-website';

await captureWebsite.file('https://sindresorhus.com', 'screenshot.png', {
	modules: [
		'https://sindresorhus.com/remote-file.js',
		'local-file.js',
		`
		document.body.style.backgroundColor = 'red';
		`
	]
});
scripts

Type: string[]

Same as the modules option, but instead injects the code as <script> instead of <script type="module">. Prefer the modules option whenever possible.

styles

Type: string[]

Inject CSS styles into the page.

Accepts an array of inline code, absolute URLs, and local file paths (must have a .css extension).

import captureWebsite from 'capture-website';

await captureWebsite.file('https://sindresorhus.com', 'screenshot.png', {
	styles: [
		'https://sindresorhus.com/remote-file.css',
		'local-file.css',
		`
		body {
			background-color: red;
		}
		`
	]
});
headers

Type: object
Default: {}

Set custom HTTP headers.

import captureWebsite from 'capture-website';

await captureWebsite.file('https://sindresorhus.com', 'screenshot.png', {
	headers: {
		'x-powered-by': 'https://github.com/sindresorhus/capture-website'
	}
});
userAgent

Type: string

Set a custom user agent.

cookies

Type: Array<string | object>

Set cookies in browser string format or object format.

Tip: Go to the website you want a cookie for and copy-paste it from DevTools.

import captureWebsite from 'capture-website';

await captureWebsite.file('https://sindresorhus.com', 'screenshot.png', {
	cookies: [
		// This format is useful for when you copy it from the browser
		'id=unicorn; Expires=Wed, 21 Oct 2018 07:28:00 GMT;',

		// This format is useful for when you have to manually create a cookie
		{
			name: 'id',
			value: 'unicorn',
			expires: Math.round(new Date('2018-10-21').getTime() / 1000)
		}
	]
});
authentication

Type: object

Credentials for HTTP authentication.

username

Type: string

password

Type: string

beforeScreenshot

Type: Function

The specified function is called right before the screenshot is captured, as well as before any bounding rectangle is calculated as part of options.element. It receives the Puppeteer Page instance as the first argument and the browser instance as the second argument. This gives you a lot of power to do custom stuff. The function can be async.

Note: Make sure to not call page.close() or browser.close().

import captureWebsite from 'capture-website';
import checkSomething from './check-something.js';

await captureWebsite.file('https://sindresorhus.com', 'screenshot.png', {
	beforeScreenshot: async (page, browser) => {
		await checkSomething();
		await page.click('#activate-button');
		await page.waitForSelector('.finished');
	}
});
debug

Type: boolean
Default: false

Show the browser window so you can see what it's doing, redirect page console output to the terminal, and slow down each Puppeteer operation.

Note: This overrides launchOptions with {headless: false, slowMo: 100}.

darkMode

Type: boolean
Default: false

Emulate preference of dark color scheme (prefers-color-scheme).

inset

Type: object | number
Default: 0

Inset the bounding box of the screenshot.

Accepts an object {top?: number; right?: number; bottom?: number; left?: number} or a number as a shorthand for all directions.

Positive values, for example inset: 10, will decrease the size of the screenshot. Negative values, for example inset: {left: -10}, will increase the size of the screenshot.

Note: This option is ignored if the fullPage option is set to true. Can be combined with the element option. Note: When the width or height of the screenshot is equal to 0 an error is thrown.

Example: Include 10 pixels around the element.

import captureWebsite from 'capture-website';

await captureWebsite.file('index.html', 'screenshot.png', {
	element: '.logo',
	inset: -10
});

Example: Ignore 15 pixels from the top of the viewport.

import captureWebsite from 'capture-website';

await captureWebsite.file('index.html', 'screenshot.png', {
	inset: {
		top: 15
	}
});
launchOptions

Type: object
Default: {headless: 'new'}

Options passed to puppeteer.launch().

Note: Some of the launch options are overridden by the debug option.

overwrite

Type: boolean
Default: false

Overwrite the destination file if it exists instead of throwing an error.

This option applies only to captureWebsite.file().

preloadFunction

Type: string | Function
Default: undefined

Inject a function to be executed prior to navigation.

This can be useful for altering the JavaScript environment. For example, you could define a global method on the window, overwrite navigator.languages to change the language presented by the browser, or mock Math.random to return a fixed value.

clip

Type: object

Define the screenshot's position and size (clipping region).

The position can be specified through x and y coordinates which starts from the top-left.

This can be useful when you only need a part of the page.

You can also consider using element option when you have a CSS selector.

Note that clip is mutually exclusive with the element and fullPage options.

For example, define the screenshot's width and height to 400 at position (0, 0):

import captureWebsite from 'capture-website';

await captureWebsite.file('https://sindresorhus.com', 'screenshot.png', {
	clip: {
		x: 0,
		y: 0,
		width: 400,
		height: 400
	}
});

captureWebsite.devices

Type: string[]

Devices supported by the emulateDevice option.

Tips

Capturing multiple screenshots

import captureWebsite from 'capture-website';

const options = {
	width: 1920,
	height: 1000
};

const items = [
	['https://sindresorhus.com', 'sindresorhus'],
	['https://github.com', 'github'],
	// …
];

await Promise.all(items.map(([url, filename]) => {
	return captureWebsite.file(url, `${filename}.png`, options);
}));

Check out filenamify-url if you need to create a filename from the URL.

FAQ

I'm getting a sandbox-related error

If you get an error like No usable sandbox! or Running as root without --no-sandbox is not supported, you need to properly set up sandboxing on your Linux instance.

Alternatively, if you completely trust the content, you can disable sandboxing (strongly discouraged):

import captureWebsite from 'capture-website';

await captureWebsite.file('…', '…', {
	launchOptions: {
		args: [
			'--no-sandbox',
			'--disable-setuid-sandbox'
		]
	}
});

How is this different from your Pageres project?

The biggest difference is that Pageres supports capturing multiple screenshots in a single call and it automatically generates the filenames and writes the files. Also, when projects are popular and mature, like Pageres, it becomes harder to make drastic changes. There are many things I would change in Pageres today, but I don't want to risk making lots of breaking changes for such a large userbase before I know whether it will work out or not. So this package is a rethink of how I would have made Pageres had I started it today. I plan to bring some things back to Pageres over time.

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