VeryPDF Screenshot API for Developers: Best Ways to Customise Output Format and Screenshot Quality
If you’ve ever tried building a tool that captures high-quality website screenshots, you know how quickly it turns into a mess.
Some APIs don’t load JavaScript properly. Others choke on animations or lazy-loaded images. You try a few open-source librariesthey work sometimes, but the documentation is sketchy, the maintenance is inconsistent, and scaling? Forget it.
I ran into all of this when I was building a dashboard for a client that required auto-generating daily screenshots of several competitor websites. They wanted full-page, high-res, mobile-optimised screenshots. Oh, and they wanted the screenshots in PDF, JPG, and PNG formats depending on the use case.
After wasting hours with half-baked tools and buggy wrappers, I finally landed on VeryPDF Website Screenshot API for Developers. Here’s why it stuckand why I’ve kept using it for my projects ever since.
Why I Chose VeryPDF’s Screenshot API
I needed something reliable, fast, customisable, and capable of outputting high-quality screenshots in multiple formats. VeryPDF’s Screenshot API hit all of these, plus a few extras I didn’t even know I needed.
Let’s start with the basics:
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Fast, documented setup From signup to my first screenshot, it took less than 5 minutes.
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Supports JPG, PNG, WebP, PDF Most tools make you pick one. This one lets you choose the best format for the job.
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Scales from 1 to millions Whether you’re taking a single screenshot or automating 10,000 daily, the infrastructure holds up.
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HD Retina output Seriously crisp. Perfect for client presentations and archiving.
Real Talk: My Experience Using It
I started with the basics. Called the API like this:
Instant result. No fuss. I added custom width and height like so:
That gave me a solid 1200×800 JPG image of the page, perfectly cropped. But things got interesting when I dived into the advanced stuff.
Feature 1: Full Page Screenshots Including Lazy-Loaded Content
Most tools break when content loads on scroll. Not this one.
VeryPDF handles parallax scrolling, lazy-loaded images, and single-page applications like a champ. For one client, we needed screenshots of a long, scroll-heavy landing page that used animations triggered by scroll events. Tools like Puppeteer and wkhtmltopdf choked.
VeryPDF didn’t just load the pageit waited for everything to render and then captured the whole thing in crystal-clear detail.
Feature 2: Multiple Output Formats with One API
Sometimes I needed PNGs. Other times, the client wanted lightweight JPGs. Occasionally, I had to deliver screenshots inside PDF reports.
Instead of converting them after the fact, I simply added the right file extension to the outfile parameter.
Want a WebP?
Need a PDF?
Boom. It just works. That flexibility saved me so much scripting time.
Feature 3: Hide Annoying Stuff Like Ads & Cookie Banners
This one’s low-key brilliant.
You can block ads, hide cookie consent banners, and clean up the page before the screenshot’s taken. It makes the output look clean, especially if you’re capturing news sites or e-commerce pages cluttered with popups.
All it takes is:
or even better,
You can feed in CSS selectors to remove just the elements you don’t want. Game-changer for clean screenshots.
Other Tools? I Tried Them. Here’s Why They Didn’t Cut It
Let’s talk alternatives for a second.
I tried:
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Puppeteer Great if you want to write 200 lines of code for one screenshot. Setup was painful. Handling scale? Even worse.
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Browsershot (Laravel) Works for small-scale stuff. But it lacks flexibility and dies under volume.
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Headless Chrome Docker builds Too heavy for what I needed. Overkill for just screenshots.
In contrast, VeryPDF gave me a Chrome-based rendering engine with AWS Lambda-level scale. No servers to manage. No weird crashes. Just solid output, every time.
Who Should Use This API?
If you’re building anything that involves:
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Daily or scheduled screenshots
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Archiving webpages
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Client report generation
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Content moderation or legal compliance
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SEO analysis tools
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Mobile vs. desktop layout comparisons
…this API saves you hours of work, every week.
I’d especially recommend it to:
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Developers automating website screenshots.
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Agencies that generate white-label reports.
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QA testers who need to visualise changes across builds.
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Marketing teams who want to archive campaign landing pages.
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Legal & compliance teams capturing ad pages before takedown.
What Makes This Tool Stand Out
Let me hit you with the core advantages:
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Simple API structure You don’t need to read a novel to get started.
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Highly customisable Viewport size, mobile mode, image blocking, delay control.
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Scalable by design Backed by AWS Lambda, handles spikes without breaking.
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Chrome rendering What you see is literally what you get. Full modern web support.
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Automatic capture timing Waits for content to load before snapping. No partials.
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Security built-in HTTPS endpoints, no sketchy data practices.
How It Saved Me Time (and Clients)
Before I switched to VeryPDF, I was spending hours debugging screenshot failures every week.
One client reported that a comparison page screenshot looked “wrong”turns out half the page hadn’t loaded. My old tool captured before JS finished executing.
With VeryPDF, I no longer worry about when the screenshot fires. It waits, loads the DOM fully, and then captures. One less thing for me to babysit.
Bonus: The image quality is good enough to send straight to clients. I no longer need to polish or resize them after the fact.
I Recommend This to Anyone Who’s Sick of Hacky Screenshot Setups
Seriously.
If you’re tired of open-source screenshot tools that feel duct-taped together
If you’re hitting scale problems
If you just want to hit an endpoint and get a reliable screenshot every time
Try VeryPDF’s Website Screenshot API.
Here’s the link to get started 100 screenshots free:
https://www.verypdf.com/online/webpage-to-pdf-converter-cloud-api/
No credit card. No config nightmare. Just results.
Need Something Special? VeryPDF Builds Custom Tools Too
VeryPDF isn’t just an API provider. They offer custom development services for just about any document or screenshot workflow you can imagine.
Whether you’re working on Windows, macOS, Linux, or mobile, they can help you build tools that:
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Convert HTML/PDF/PCL to images or searchable PDFs
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Monitor or intercept Windows printing jobs
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Integrate OCR with layout detection (great for scanned tables and forms)
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Capture high-volume screenshots at scale
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Add barcode recognition or digital signature tech
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Create custom PDF security, watermark, and DRM tools
They’ve got deep experience with Python, C/C++, .NET, PHP, and more.
Need something bespoke? Reach out to their team here: http://support.verypdf.com/
FAQs
1. Can I use this API to capture mobile views of a site?
Yes. You can set custom viewport sizes and simulate mobile devices using parameters.
2. Is there a delay function if my site has animations or delayed content?
Absolutely. The API auto-detects when the page is fully loaded, but you can also manually set delays.
3. Can I hide specific elements like popups or cookie banners?
Yes. Use the --hide-selectors parameter with CSS class names to remove anything before capture.
4. Do I need to install anything locally?
Nope. It’s a cloud-based API. No local installs, no headless browser setup.
5. What output formats are supported?
You can export to JPG, PNG, WebP, or PDF by simply changing the output file extension.
Keywords / Tags
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Website screenshot API
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Webpage to PDF converter
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Full-page screenshot API
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Screenshot automation tool
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Best screenshot API for developers
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Capture website as image
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Chrome-based screenshot API