Code Examples

Take Screenshots with PHP

Ready-to-copy PHP code for capturing website screenshots, generating PDFs, and processing pages at scale. Uses cURL (built-in) or Guzzle.

Get free API key →Try in playground

Python Node.js TypeScript Go PHP Ruby Java C#Rust Swift Kotlin cURL R Elixir

Quick Start

Screenshot in PHP — minimal example

The simplest way to capture a screenshot. Just a URL and your API key.

PHPquickstart

$response = file_get_contents(
    "https://api.screenshotdev.com/v1/screenshot?" . http_build_query([
        "url" => "https://example.com",
        "access_key" => "YOUR_ACCESS_KEY",
    ])
);
file_put_contents("screenshot.png", $response);

Full Example

Production-ready PHP script

Complete working script with options for viewport, format, full page capture, and error handling.

PHPfull example

<?php

$apiKey = "YOUR_ACCESS_KEY";
$baseUrl = "https://api.screenshotdev.com/v1/screenshot";

function takeScreenshot(
    string $url,
    string $format = "webp",
    int $width = 1280,
    bool $fullPage = false,
    bool $darkMode = false
): string {
    global $apiKey, $baseUrl;

    $params = http_build_query([
        "url" => $url,
        "access_key" => $apiKey,
        "format" => $format,
        "width" => $width,
        "full_page" => $fullPage ? "true" : "false",
        "dark_mode" => $darkMode ? "true" : "false",
    ]);

    $ch = curl_init("$baseUrl?$params");
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
    $body = curl_exec($ch);
    $status = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
    curl_close($ch);

    if ($status !== 200) {
        throw new RuntimeException("Screenshot failed ($status): $body");
    }
    return $body;
}

$img = takeScreenshot("https://example.com", format: "webp", width: 1440, fullPage: true);
file_put_contents("screenshot.webp", $img);
echo "Saved screenshot.webp (" . strlen($img) . " bytes)\n";

Advanced

More PHP examples

PDF generation, batch processing, webhooks, CSS/JS injection, and S3 upload.

PDF Generation

PHPpdf

$params = http_build_query([
    "url" => "https://example.com",
    "access_key" => "YOUR_ACCESS_KEY",
    "format" => "a4",
    "landscape" => "false",
    "margin" => "20px",
]);
$pdf = file_get_contents("https://api.screenshotdev.com/v1/pdf?$params");
file_put_contents("page.pdf", $pdf);

Batch Screenshots

PHPbatch

$apiKey = "YOUR_ACCESS_KEY";
$urls = [
    "https://example.com",
    "https://github.com",
    "https://news.ycombinator.com",
];

foreach ($urls as $url) {
    $params = http_build_query([
        "url" => $url,
        "access_key" => $apiKey,
        "format" => "webp",
    ]);
    $img = file_get_contents(
        "https://api.screenshotdev.com/v1/screenshot?$params"
    );
    $host = parse_url($url, PHP_URL_HOST);
    file_put_contents("$host.webp", $img);
    echo "  $host.webp (" . strlen($img) . " bytes)\n";
}

Async with Webhooks

PHPwebhooks

$ch = curl_init("https://api.screenshotdev.com/v1/screenshot");
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
    CURLOPT_POST => true,
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => ["Content-Type: application/json"],
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => json_encode([
        "url" => "https://example.com",
        "access_key" => "YOUR_ACCESS_KEY",
        "webhook_url" => "https://your-app.com/api/webhooks/screenshot",
        "format" => "webp",
        "full_page" => true,
    ]),
]);
$result = json_decode(curl_exec($ch), true);
curl_close($ch);
echo "Job queued: {$result['id']}\n";

Custom CSS/JS Injection

PHPinject

$params = http_build_query([
    "url" => "https://example.com",
    "access_key" => "YOUR_ACCESS_KEY",
    "inject_css" => "body { font-family: 'Inter', sans-serif; } .ad { display: none; }",
    "inject_js" => "document.querySelectorAll('[data-cookie-banner]').forEach(el => el.remove())",
    "block_ads" => "true",
]);
$img = file_get_contents("https://api.screenshotdev.com/v1/screenshot?$params");
file_put_contents("clean.webp", $img);

S3 Upload

PHPs3

use Aws\S3\S3Client;

// 1. Capture the screenshot
$params = http_build_query([
    "url" => "https://example.com",
    "access_key" => "YOUR_ACCESS_KEY",
    "format" => "webp",
]);
$img = file_get_contents("https://api.screenshotdev.com/v1/screenshot?$params");

// 2. Upload to S3
$s3 = new S3Client(["region" => "us-east-1"]);
$s3->putObject([
    "Bucket" => "my-screenshots",
    "Key" => "captures/example-com.webp",
    "Body" => $img,
    "ContentType" => "image/webp",
]);