How do you take a Screenshot of a website via .Net code?

Question

Is it possible to take a screen shot of any given url using .Net code?

What is the easiest way to do it?

Answer 1

I searched far and wide to find a solution to this problem and the issue with using the WebBrowser and other suggestions is that you need a lot of access to the box.

To date this is the best third party tool I have been able to find:

http://www.websitesscreenshot.com/

Their SEO is terrible, but I believe I found them on a forum or even Stack... I do own a license and what you get is just a single DLL you can reference. Passing a license to the constructor removes their watermark.

After a quick peek with ILSpy I believe what it does is that it interprets the HTML and dumps an image for your viewing pleasure.

Usage

Saving A URL

WebsitesScreenshot.WebsitesScreenshot  _Obj;
_Obj = new WebsitesScreenshot.WebsitesScreenshot ();
WebsitesScreenshot.WebsitesScreenshot.Result _Result;
_Result = _Obj.CaptureWebpage("http://www.google.com");
if (_Result == WebsitesScreenshot.WebsitesScreenshot.Result.Captured)
{
    _Obj.ImageFormat = WebsitesScreenshot.
        WebsitesScreenshot.ImageFormats.PNG;
    _Obj.SaveImage ("c:\\google.png");
}            
_Obj.Dispose();

Saving Raw HTML String

WebsitesScreenshot.WebsitesScreenshot _Obj;
_Obj=new WebsitesScreenshot.WebsitesScreenshot();
WebsitesScreenshot.WebsitesScreenshot.Result _Result;
_Result = _Obj.CaptureHTML(
"
 Hello world 
");
if (_Result == WebsitesScreenshot.WebsitesScreenshot.Result.Captured)
{
    _Obj.ImageFormat = WebsitesScreenshot.
        WebsitesScreenshot.ImageFormats.GIF;
    _Obj.SaveImage("c:\\test.gif");
}
_Obj.Dispose();

You can find more on their usage page. Found Here:

http://www.websitesscreenshot.com/Usage.html

Hope this helps !

Cheers!!