Create an image from an url using PHP GD

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How to save webpage as a image file using PHP?

I would like to create an image on the server using a url string that is given. I want a screen shot of a website to be created. Is it possible with PHP GD , if so how ? Thanks

hope this can help you http://stackoverflow.com/a/487743/1358004 — Viral Shah, Oct 24 '12 at 08:43
@h2ooooooo, I'm reading the PHP GD Documentation and I can't seem to find how to achieve what I want — Alon, Oct 24 '12 at 08:43
If you mean taking a screenshot OF the website, [this question](http://stackoverflow.com/q/757675/1607098) may help you — Touki, Oct 24 '12 at 08:44
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/947642/create-a-website-screenshot-thumbnail-server-side — Prof. Falken, Oct 24 '12 at 08:58

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

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You need something like PhantomJS to do it. This can be called from PHP.

edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

Community

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answered Oct 24 '12 at 09:00

Prof. Falken

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score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 24 '12 at 08:43

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Pretty sure GD can't handle this by itself. You'd need an HTML renderer too.

answered Oct 24 '12 at 08:43

wizzardmr42

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Is there a way to use the string I have in file_get_contents('http://someurl.com') and create from it an image or a pdf ? – Alon Oct 24 '12 at 08:45
You can use some existing scripts or libs to generate a PDF from an pure HTML/CSS-Site. The only one I know that produces acceptable results is this: http://www.princexml.com/ – Ron Oct 24 '12 at 08:51
I think you'd need a paid component to do that or at least run it through a browser on the server side and screenshot it (doubt that is easy to get working reliably though!). You are going to hit problems if you just grab the string though as it won't be able to resolve references to relative URLs for things like CSS etc. – wizzardmr42 Oct 24 '12 at 08:52

Ron · Answer 3 · 2012-10-24T08:52:26.573

As far as I know, there is no existing PHP-Lib, which can do this. PHP-GD has to do with graphics, but you cant do this with it. Even if: What will happen, if the Site uses Javascript to enable certain important parts of a site? Or even images or other resources, that require long running requests? Or consider sites using flash... There are some tools for linux to take screenshots in batch - configurable with timer etc.

Create an image from an url using PHP GD

3 Answers3