Taking Screenshots and PDFs with Playwright

Capturing screenshots and PDFs is essential for visual verification, archiving web pages, monitoring changes, and debugging scrapers. Playwright makes this straightforward with built-in methods that support full-page captures, element-specific screenshots, and high-quality PDF generation.

Full-Page Screenshots

from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.chromium.launch(headless=True)
    page = browser.new_page()
    page.goto("https://quotes.toscrape.com")
    page.wait_for_load_state("networkidle")

    # Screenshot of the visible viewport
    page.screenshot(path="viewport.png")

    # Full-page screenshot (scrolls and captures everything)
    page.screenshot(path="fullpage.png", full_page=True)

    browser.close()

Element Screenshots

Capture just a specific element instead of the entire page:

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.chromium.launch(headless=True)
    page = browser.new_page()
    page.goto("https://quotes.toscrape.com")

    # Screenshot a single quote
    quote = page.query_selector(".quote")
    quote.screenshot(path="single_quote.png")

    browser.close()

Screenshot Options

page.screenshot(
    path="capture.png",
    full_page=True,
    type="png",              # "png" or "jpeg"
    quality=80,              # JPEG quality (1-100), ignored for PNG
    omit_background=True,    # Transparent background for PNG
)

# Get screenshot as bytes (useful for saving to S3 or database)
screenshot_bytes = page.screenshot(full_page=True)

Custom Viewport Size

Control the browser window size before capturing:

page = browser.new_page(viewport={"width": 1920, "height": 1080})
page.goto("https://example.com")
page.screenshot(path="desktop.png")

# Mobile viewport
mobile_page = browser.new_page(viewport={"width": 375, "height": 812})
mobile_page.goto("https://example.com")
mobile_page.screenshot(path="mobile.png")

Generating PDFs

PDF generation works only with Chromium in headless mode:

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.chromium.launch(headless=True)
    page = browser.new_page()
    page.goto("https://quotes.toscrape.com")
    page.wait_for_load_state("networkidle")

    page.pdf(
        path="page.pdf",
        format="A4",
        print_background=True,
        margin={
            "top": "1cm",
            "bottom": "1cm",
            "left": "1cm",
            "right": "1cm"
        }
    )

    browser.close()

Practical Use Case: Visual Change Monitoring

import hashlib

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.chromium.launch(headless=True)
    page = browser.new_page()
    page.goto("https://example.com/pricing")
    page.wait_for_load_state("networkidle")

    screenshot = page.screenshot(full_page=True)
    current_hash = hashlib.md5(screenshot).hexdigest()

    # Compare with previously stored hash to detect changes
    print(f"Page hash: {current_hash}")

    browser.close()

Next Steps

• Scrape infinite scroll pages with Playwright
• Handle forms, dropdowns, and click interactions
• Use Playwright with proxies for large-scale captures