Search Content


Content Categories



Automated Screenshots from Command Line

Learn how to capture automated screenshots of multiple web pages from the command line in one go using the rendering engine of Internet Explorer, Safari or Google Chrome.

If you like to capture screenshots of multiple web pages in one go, the regular screen capture utilities (like SnagIt) can do the job but they require way too much effort.

You’ll have to open each site manually, then wait for the web page to load and finally hit the print screen key. Now imagine repeating this process for 10 different websites every morning. Impossible, right?

What you really need here is a command line screen capture utility like CutyCapt or IECapt – both are similar in execution but differ slightly in the way they render web pages because the former use WebKit engine (same as Google Chrome or Safari) while the latter will save screenshots as if you are viewing the page in Internet Explorer.

command line screenshots
Screen Capture Web Pages from Command Prompt

Now to capture a screenshot of Google homepage from DOS, you write a simple like this:

IECapt --url=http://www.google.com/ --out=google.png

You have complete control over the output image format and the page dimensions.

To screen capture multiple web pages, you can write a simple DOS batch file and then configure it run at regular intervals using Windows Task Scheduler. The trick may used to create a time lapse video of web pages as this Techmeme video.

CutyCapt offers some extra options like you can turn off JavaScript and browser plug-ins so web pages may render a little faster.


Related Platform Edition Articles

From the Pacific Crest On-Demand Conference


Last Thursday we had the pleasure of participating in the 3rd Annual Pacific Crest On-Demand Conference, the kickoff to Pacific Crest's Emerging Technology Summit. Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff invited us on stage during his keynote to...

Read more about From the Pacific Crest On-Demand Conference...

Wikipedia Website Now Available for Mobile Devices


Wikipedia has launched a mobile phone optimized version of their encyclopedia website at mobile.wikipedia.org. Wikipedia has officially launched a mobile phone optimized version of their encyclopedia at mobile.wikipedia.org. This is a plain vanilla...

Read more about Wikipedia Website Now Available for Mobile Devices...