Render HTML to an image

Is there a way to render html to image like PNG? I know that it is possible with canvas but I would like to render standard html element like div for example.

There is a lot of options and they all have their pro and cons.

Option 1: Use an API

• ApiFlash (based on chrome)
• EvoPDF (has an option for html)
• Grabzit
• HTML/CSS to Image API
• ...

Pros

• Execute Javascript
• Near perfect rendering
• Fast when caching options are correctly used
• Scale is handled by the APIs
• Precise timing, viewport, ...
• Most of the time they offer a free plan

Cons

• Not free if you plan to use them a lot

Option 2: Use one of the many available libraries

• dom-to-image
• wkhtmltoimage (included in the wkhtmltopdf tool)
• IMGKit (for ruby and based on wkhtmltoimage)
• imgkit (for python and based on wkhtmltoimage)
• python-webkit2png
• ...

Pros

• Conversion is quite fast most of the time

Cons

• Bad rendering
• Does not execute javascript
• No support for recent web features (FlexBox, Advanced Selectors, Webfonts, Box Sizing, Media Queries, ...)
• Sometimes not so easy to install
• Complicated to scale

Option 3: Use PhantomJs and maybe a wrapper library

• PhantomJs
• node-webshot (javascript wrapper library for PhantomJs)
• ...

Pros

• Execute Javascript
• Quite fast

Cons

• Bad rendering
• No support for recent web features (FlexBox, Advanced Selectors, Webfonts, Box Sizing, Media Queries, ...)
• Complicated to scale
• Not so easy to make it work if there is images to be loaded ...

Option 4: Use Chrome Headless and maybe a wrapper library

• Chrome Headless
• chrome-devtools-protocol
• Puppeteer (javascript wrapper library for Chrome headless)
• ...

Pros

• Execute Javascript
• Near perfect rendering

Cons

• Not so easy to have exactly the wanted result regarding:
  • page load timing
  • viewport dimensions
• Complicated to scale
• Quite slow and even slower if the html contains external links

Disclosure: I'm the founder of ApiFlash. I did my best to provide an honest and useful answer.

Yes. HTML2Canvas exists to render HTML onto <canvas> (which you can then use as an image).

NOTE: There is a known issue, that this will not work with SVG

May I recommend dom-to-image library, that was written solely to address this problem (I'm the maintainer).
Here is how you use it (some more here):

var node = document.getElementById('my-node');

domtoimage.toPng(node)
    .then (function (dataUrl) {
        var img = new Image();
        img.src = dataUrl;
        document.appendChild(img);
    })
    .catch(function (error) {
        console.error('oops, something went wrong!', error);
    });

All the answers here use third party libraries while rendering HTML to an image can be relatively simple in pure Javascript. There is was even an article about it on the canvas section on MDN.

The trick is this:

• create an SVG with a foreignObject node containing your XHTML
• set the src of an image to the data url of that SVG
• drawImage onto the canvas
• set canvas data to target image.src

const {body} = document

const canvas = document.createElement('canvas')
const ctx = canvas.getContext('2d')
canvas.width = canvas.height = 100

const tempImg = document.createElement('img')
tempImg.addEventListener('load', onTempImageLoad)
tempImg.src = 'data:image/svg+xml,' + encodeURIComponent('<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="100" height="100"><foreignObject width="100%" height="100%"><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><style>em{color:red;}</style><em>I</em> lick <span>cheese</span></div></foreignObject></svg>')

const targetImg = document.createElement('img')
body.appendChild(targetImg)

function onTempImageLoad(e){
  ctx.drawImage(e.target, 0, 0)
  targetImg.src = canvas.toDataURL()
}

Some things to note

• The HTML inside the SVG has to be XHTML
• For security reasons the SVG as data url of an image acts as an isolated CSS scope for the HTML since no external sources can be loaded. So a Google font for instance has to be inlined using a tool like this one.
• Even when the HTML inside the SVG exceeds the size of the image it wil draw onto the canvas correctly. But the actual height cannot be measured from that image. A fixed height solution will work just fine but dynamic height will require a bit more work. The best is to render the SVG data into an iframe (for isolated CSS scope) and use the resulting size for the canvas.

I know this is quite an old question which already has a lot of answers, yet I still spent hours trying to actually do what I wanted:

• given an html file, generate a (png) image with transparent background from the command line

Using Chrome headless (version 74.0.3729.157 as of this response), it is actually easy:

"/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome" --headless --screenshot --window-size=256,256 --default-background-color=0 button.html

Explanation of the command:

• you run Chrome from the command line (here shown for the Mac, but assuming similar on Windows or Linux)
• --headless runs Chrome without opening it and exits after the command completes
• --screenshot will capture a screenshot (note that it generates a file called screenshot.png in the folder where the command is run)
• --window-size allow to only capture a portion of the screen (format is --window-size=width,height)
• --default-background-color=0 is the magic trick that tells Chrome to use a transparent background, not the default white color
• finally you provide the html file (as a url either local or remote...)

You could use PhantomJS, which is a headless webkit (the rendering engine in safari and (up until recently) chrome) driver. You can learn how to do screen capture of pages here. Hope that helps!

The only library that I got to work for Chrome, Firefox and MS Edge was rasterizeHTML. It outputs better quality that HTML2Canvas and is still supported unlike HTML2Canvas.

Getting Element and Downloading as PNG

var node= document.getElementById("elementId");
var canvas = document.createElement("canvas");
canvas.height = node.offsetHeight;
canvas.width = node.offsetWidth;
var name = "test.png"

rasterizeHTML.drawHTML(node.outerHTML, canvas)
     .then(function (renderResult) {
            if (navigator.msSaveBlob) {
                window.navigator.msSaveBlob(canvas.msToBlob(), name);
            } else {
                const a = document.createElement("a");
                document.body.appendChild(a);
                a.style = "display: none";
                a.href = canvas.toDataURL();
                a.download = name;
                a.click();
                document.body.removeChild(a);
            }
     });

You can use an HTML to PDF tool like wkhtmltopdf. And then you can use a PDF to image tool like imagemagick. Admittedly this is server side and a very convoluted process...

I read the answer by Sjeiti which I found very interesting, where you with just a few plain JavaScript lines can render HTML in an image.

We of course have to be aware of the limitations of this method (please read about some of them in his answer).

Here I have taken his code a couple of steps further.

An SVG-image has in principle infinite resolution, since it is vector graphics. But you might have noticed that the image that Sjeiti's code generated did not have a high resolution. This can be fixed by scaling the SVG-image before transferring it to the canvas-element, which I have done in the last one of the two (runnable) example codes i give below. The other thing I have implemented in that code is the last step, namely saving it as a PNG-file. Just to complete the whole thing.

So, I give two runnable snippets of code:

The first one demonstrates the infinite resolution of an SVG. Run it and zoom in with your browser to see that the resolution does not diminish as you zoom in.

In the snippet that you can run I have used backticks to specify a so called template string with line breaks so that you can more clearly see the HTML that is rendered. But otherwise, if that HTML is within one line, then the code will be very short, like this.

const body = document.getElementsByTagName('BODY')[0];
const img = document.createElement('img')
img.src = 'data:image/svg+xml,' + encodeURIComponent(`<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="200" height="200"><foreignObject width="100%" height="100%"><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="border:1px solid red;padding:20px;"><style>em {color:red;}.test {color:blue;}</style>What you see here is only an image, nothing else.<br /><br /><em>I</em> really like <span class="test">cheese.</span><br /><br />Zoom in to check the resolution!</div></foreignObject></svg>`);        
body.appendChild(img);

Here it comes as a runnable snippet.

const body = document.getElementsByTagName('BODY')[0];
const img = document.createElement('img')
img.src = 'data:image/svg+xml,' + encodeURIComponent(`
  <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="200" height="200">
    <foreignObject width="100%" height="100%">
      <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="border:1px solid red;padding:20px;">
        <style>
          em {
            color:red;
          }
          .test {
            color:blue;
          }
        </style>
        What you see here is only an image, nothing
        else.<br />
        <br />
        <em>I</em> really like <span class="test">cheese.</span><br />
        <br />
        Zoom in to check the resolution!
      </div>
    </foreignObject>
  </svg>
`);
body.appendChild(img);

Zoom in and check the infinite resolution of the SVG.

The next runnable, below, is the one that implements the two extra steps which I mentioned above, namely improving resolution by first scaling the SVG, and then the saving as a PNG-image.

window.addEventListener("load", doit, false)
var canvas;
var ctx;
var tempImg;
function doit() {
	const body = document.getElementsByTagName('BODY')[0];
	const scale = document.getElementById('scale').value;
	let trans = document.getElementById('trans').checked;
  if (trans) {
    trans = '';
  } else {
    trans = 'background-color:white;';
  }
	let source = `
		<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="border:1px solid red;padding:20px;${trans}">
			<style>
				em {
					color:red;
				}
				.test {
					color:blue;
				}
			</style>
			What you see here is only an image, nothing
			else.<br />
			<br />
			<em>I</em> really like <span class="test">cheese.</span><br />
			<br />
			<div style="text-align:center;">
				Scaling:
				<br />
				${scale} times!
			</div>
		</div>`
	document.getElementById('source').innerHTML = source;
	canvas = document.createElement('canvas');
	ctx = canvas.getContext('2d');
	canvas.width = 200*scale;
	canvas.height = 200*scale;
	tempImg = document.createElement('img');
	tempImg.src = 'data:image/svg+xml,' + encodeURIComponent(`
		<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="${200*scale}" height="${200*scale}">
			<foreignObject 
				style="
					width:200px;
					height:200px;
					transform:scale(${scale});
				"
			>` + source + `
			</foreignObject>
		</svg>
	`);
}
function saveAsPng(){
	ctx.drawImage(tempImg, 0, 0);
	var a  = document.createElement('a');
	a.href = canvas.toDataURL('image/png');
	a.download = 'image.png';
    a.click();
}

<table border="0">
	<tr>
		<td colspan="2">
			The claims in the HTML-text is only true for the image created when you click the button.
		</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td width="250">
			<div id="source" style="width:200px;height:200px;">
			</div>
		</td>
		<td valign="top">
			<div>
				&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In this example the PNG-image will be squarish even if the HTML here on the left is not exactly squarish. That can be fixed.<br>
				&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To increase the resolution of the image you can change the scaling with this slider.
                <div style="text-align:right;margin:5px 0px;">
                    <label style="background-color:#FDD;border:1px solid #F77;padding:0px 10px;"><input id="trans" type="checkbox" onchange="doit();" />&nbsp;&nbsp;Make it transparent</label>
                </div>
				<span style="white-space:nowrap;">1<input id="scale" type="range" min="1" max="10" step="0.25" value="2" oninput="doit();" style="width:150px;vertical-align:-8px;" />10&nbsp;&nbsp;<button onclick="saveAsPng();">Save as PNG-image</button></span>
			</div>
			
		</td>
	</tr>
</table>

Try with different scalings. If you for example set scaling to 10, then you get a very good resolution in the generated PNG-image. And I added a little extra feature: a checkbox so that you can make the PNG-image transparent if you like.

Notice:

The Save-button does not work in Chrome and Edge when this script is run here at Stack Overflow. The reason is this https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5706745674465280 .

Therefore I have also put this snippet on https://jsfiddle.net/7gozdq5v/ where it works for those browsers.

Use html2canvas just include plugin and call method to convert HTML to Canvas then download as image PNG

        html2canvas(document.getElementById("image-wrap")).then(function(canvas) {
            var link = document.createElement("a");
            document.body.appendChild(link);
            link.download = "manpower_efficiency.jpg";
            link.href = canvas.toDataURL();
            link.target = '_blank';
            link.click();
        });

Source: http://www.freakyjolly.com/convert-html-document-into-image-jpg-png-from-canvas/

Use this code, it will surely work:

<script type="text/javascript">
 $(document).ready(function () {
	 setTimeout(function(){
		 downloadImage();
	 },1000)
 });
 
 function downloadImage(){
	 html2canvas(document.querySelector("#dvContainer")).then(canvas => {
		a = document.createElement('a'); 
		document.body.appendChild(a); 
		a.download = "test.png"; 
		a.href =  canvas.toDataURL();
		a.click();
	});	 
 }
</script>

Just do not forget to include Html2CanvasJS file in your program. https://html2canvas.hertzen.com/dist/html2canvas.js

I don't expect this to be the best answer, but it seemed interesting enough to post.

Write an app that opens up your favorite browser to the desired HTML document, sizes the window properly, and takes a screen shot. Then, remove the borders of the image.

You can't do this 100% accurately with JavaScript alone.

There's a Qt Webkit tool out there, and a python version. If you want to do it yourself, I've had success with Cocoa:

[self startTraverse:pagesArray performBlock:^(int collectionIndex, int pageIndex) {
    
    NSString *locale = [self selectedLocale];
    
    NSRect offscreenRect = NSMakeRect(0.0, 0.0, webView.frame.size.width, webView.frame.size.height);
    NSBitmapImageRep* offscreenRep = nil;      
    
    offscreenRep = [[NSBitmapImageRep alloc] initWithBitmapDataPlanes:nil
                                             pixelsWide:offscreenRect.size.width
                                             pixelsHigh:offscreenRect.size.height
                                             bitsPerSample:8
                                             samplesPerPixel:4
                                             hasAlpha:YES
                                             isPlanar:NO
                                             colorSpaceName:NSCalibratedRGBColorSpace
                                             bitmapFormat:0
                                             bytesPerRow:(4 * offscreenRect.size.width)
                                             bitsPerPixel:32];
    
    [NSGraphicsContext saveGraphicsState];
    
    NSGraphicsContext *bitmapContext = [NSGraphicsContext graphicsContextWithBitmapImageRep:offscreenRep];
    [NSGraphicsContext setCurrentContext:bitmapContext];
    [webView displayRectIgnoringOpacity:offscreenRect inContext:bitmapContext];
    [NSGraphicsContext restoreGraphicsState];

    // Create a small + large thumbs
    NSImage *smallThumbImage = [[NSImage alloc] initWithSize:thumbSizeSmall];  
    NSImage *largeThumbImage = [[NSImage alloc] initWithSize:thumbSizeLarge];
    
    [smallThumbImage lockFocus];
    [[NSGraphicsContext currentContext] setImageInterpolation:NSImageInterpolationHigh];  
    [offscreenRep drawInRect:CGRectMake(0, 0, thumbSizeSmall.width, thumbSizeSmall.height)];  
    NSBitmapImageRep *smallThumbOutput = [[NSBitmapImageRep alloc] initWithFocusedViewRect:CGRectMake(0, 0, thumbSizeSmall.width, thumbSizeSmall.height)];  
    [smallThumbImage unlockFocus];  

    [largeThumbImage lockFocus];  
    [[NSGraphicsContext currentContext] setImageInterpolation:NSImageInterpolationHigh];  
    [offscreenRep drawInRect:CGRectMake(0, 0, thumbSizeLarge.width, thumbSizeLarge.height)];  
    NSBitmapImageRep *largeThumbOutput = [[NSBitmapImageRep alloc] initWithFocusedViewRect:CGRectMake(0, 0, thumbSizeLarge.width, thumbSizeLarge.height)];  
    [largeThumbImage unlockFocus];  
    
    // Write out small
    NSString *writePathSmall = [issueProvider.imageDestinationPath stringByAppendingPathComponent:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"/%@-collection-%03d-page-%03d_small.png", locale, collectionIndex, pageIndex]];
    NSData *dataSmall = [smallThumbOutput representationUsingType:NSPNGFileType properties: nil];
    [dataSmall writeToFile:writePathSmall atomically: NO];

    // Write out lage
    NSString *writePathLarge = [issueProvider.imageDestinationPath stringByAppendingPathComponent:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"/%@-collection-%03d-page-%03d_large.png", locale, collectionIndex, pageIndex]];
    NSData *dataLarge = [largeThumbOutput representationUsingType:NSPNGFileType properties: nil];
    [dataLarge writeToFile:writePathLarge atomically: NO];
}];

Hope this helps!

This is what I did.

Note: Please check App.js for the code.

Link to source code

If you liked it, you can drop a star.✌️

Update:

import * as htmlToImage from 'html-to-image';
import download from 'downloadjs';

import logo from './logo.svg';
import './App.css';

const App = () => {
  const onButtonClick = () => {
    var domElement = document.getElementById('my-node');
    htmlToImage.toJpeg(domElement)
      .then(function (dataUrl) {
        console.log(dataUrl);
        download(dataUrl, 'image.jpeg');
      })
      .catch(function (error) {
        console.error('oops, something went wrong!', error);
      });
  };
  return (
    <div className="App" id="my-node">
      <header className="App-header">
        <img src={logo} className="App-logo" alt="logo" />
        <p>
          Edit <code>src/App.js</code> and save to reload.
        </p>
        <a
          className="App-link"
          href="https://reactjs.org"
          target="_blank"
          rel="noopener noreferrer"
        >
          Learn React
        </a><br></br>
        <button onClick={onButtonClick}>Download as JPEG</button>
      </header>
    </div>
  );
}

export default App;

I also put my head around this issue. And I found this as the best solution for your problem

We can use html-to-image library of javascript to convert HTML code to image

> npm install html-to-image

HTML Code

<div>
<div id="capture">
 <p>
    <span>Heading Of Image</span><br></br>
    <span>This is color Image</span><br></br>
    <img src="Your/ImagePath/ifany.jpg" width="100%" />
    <span>Footer Of the Image</span>
 </p>
</div>
<h2>Generated Image</h2>
<div id="real">
</div></div>

Javascript Code

var htmlToImage = require('html-to-image');
var node = document.getElementById('capture');
htmlToImage.toJpeg(node, { quality: 1, backgroundColor: "#FFFFFF", height: node.clientHeight, width: node.clientWidth })
    .then(function (dataUrl) {
        var img = new Image();
        img.src = dataUrl;
        var div = document.getElementById("real")
        div.appendChild(img)
    })
    .catch(function (error) {
        console.error('oops, something went wrong!', error);
    });

By this example, you can now see your image in <div> tag where id = 'real'. You can now add the save and download or upload image option in code.

Install phantomjs

$ npm install phantomjs

Create a file github.js with following code

var page = require('webpage').create();
//viewportSize being the actual size of the headless browser
page.viewportSize = { width: 1024, height: 768 };
page.open('http://github.com/', function() {
    page.render('github.png');
    phantom.exit();
});

Pass the file as argument to phantomjs

$ phantomjs github.js

HtmlToImage.jar will be the simplest way to convert a html into an image

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36933054/converting-html-to-image-using-java

You can add reference HtmlRenderer to your project and do the following,

string htmlCode ="<p>This is a sample html.</p>";
Image image = HtmlRender.RenderToImage(htmlCode ,new Size(500,300));