Question

Is there a way to take a screenshot using PIL of an specified HTML/Javascript page that resides on my server?

I want to write a script that will change some parameters on that HTML page and then have PIL take screenshots of it.

Any ideas? Examples would be truly appreciated.

Answer 1

Do you absolutely have to use PIL? If not you might be able to get what you want using PyQT which has a built-in Webkit control.

See http://notes.alexdong.com/xhtml-to-pdf-using-pyqt4-webkit-and-headless for an example which converts html+css into a PDF without using a separate browser. The code is pretty short so I’ve copied it below.

import sys
from PyQt4.QtCore import *
from PyQt4.QtGui import *
from PyQt4.QtWebKit import *

app = QApplication(sys.argv)

web = QWebView()
web.load(QUrl("http://www.google.com"))
#web.show()

printer = QPrinter()
printer.setPageSize(QPrinter.A4)
printer.setOutputFormat(QPrinter.PdfFormat)
printer.setOutputFileName("file.pdf")

def convertIt():
    web.print_(printer)
    print "Pdf generated"
    QApplication.exit()

QObject.connect(web, SIGNAL("loadFinished(bool)"), convertIt)

sys.exit(app.exec_())