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Full-page screenshots

By default, the only thing you need to do is to set the full_page parameter to true:

https://api.screenshotone.com/take?url=https://example.com&full_page=true&access_key=...

The API tuned to balance performance and quality for the full-page screenshots. However, if you need to improve the quality of rendering, for the full-page screenshots, there is a few things you can do:

  1. Try different rendering algorithms.
  2. Tune scrolling of the page.
  3. Reduce animations.
  4. Wait more.

However, improving the quality of rendering might lead to a performance degradation.

Different rendering algorithms

By default, the API uses the full_page uses a simple algorithm to screenshot the full page—it asks the browser to render it and usually that means that the browser just stretches the viewport to render the full-page screenshot. It rarely but leads to rendering issues.

You can try to use a different algorithm instead—by_sections:

full_page_algorithm=by_sections

It might be better in most cases. Since it will try to scroll the page and render it section by section, and then stitch all the sections into one image.

But while scrolling the page, not every element might triggered due the speed of the scrolling and the delay between the scrolls. Try to tune scrolling.

Tune scrolling

Try to decrease or increase the size of the scroll step:

full_page_scroll_by=500

And increase the delay between the scrolls, it might help to render the page correctly

full_page_scroll_delay=1500

It might help to render the page better and trigger more lazy-loaded elements.

Reduce animations

Request websites to reduce the number of animations by adding the reduced_motion parameter:

reduced_motion=true

Wait more

Add from 5 to 10 seconds to wait for the page to load:

delay=5

Block ads, trackers, banners and other elements

Request the API to block ads, trackers, banners and other elements by use the following parameters:

block_ads=true&block_trackers=true&block_cookie_banners=true&block_chats=true&block_banners_by_heuristics=true

Summary

Combining all the tips above, you might try to get the best results with something like that:

https://api.screenshotone.com/take?access_key=...&url=https://example.com&full_page=true&full_page_algorithm=by_sections&full_page_scroll_by=500&full_page_scroll_delay=1500&reduced_motion=true&delay=5&block_ads=true&block_trackers=true&block_cookie_banners=true&block_chats=true&block_banners_by_heuristics=true

Support

Rendering full-page screenshots reliably is a real challenge. And even after a lot of tuning, it might not work for all the pages.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us at support@screenshotone.com.