html-renderfriend 1.0.0

Full-page HTML/URL to PNG screenshotter — CLI + drag-and-drop GUI

HTML RenderFriend

Full-page PNG screenshot utility for HTML files and URLs — CLI + drag-and-drop GUI

Renders any web page or local .html file into a complete, scroll-captured PNG using the same Chromium engine as Google Chrome. Includes both a command-line tool and a modern drag-and-drop graphical interface.

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How it works

Producing a screenshot that captures the entire page height requires a full browser engine. Playwright launches a headless Chromium instance, navigates to your content, waits for all resources and JavaScript to settle, scrolls the page, then captures everything — including overflow content that would only appear after scrolling. This is fundamentally different from static converters that ignore JS-driven layout.

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Features

Feature	CLI	GUI
Remote URLs (http/https)	✓	✓
Local .html / .htm files	✓	✓
Paste raw HTML directly	—	✓
Drag-and-drop from Explorer	—	✓
Configurable viewport width	✓	✓
Retina 2× output (deviceScaleFactor)	✓	✓
Full-page scroll capture	✓	✓
Timestamped log pane	—	✓
Dark / light theme toggle	—	✓
Open output folder in Explorer	—	✓

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Installation (Windows 10)

One-click setup

git clone https://github.com/bra-khet/html-renderfriend.git
cd html-renderfriend
setup.bat

setup.bat creates a virtual environment, installs all pip packages, and downloads the Chromium browser (~150 MB, once).

Manual setup

python -m venv venv
venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -e .
playwright install chromium

Requirements: Python 3.11+. Check with python --version.

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Usage

Graphical interface (recommended)

gui.bat

Or double-click gui.bat. The window opens with three ways to provide input:

Input method	How
Drag and drop	Drag any .html file from Windows Explorer onto the green drop zone
URL / path	Type or paste into the entry field on the "Drop / URL" tab
Paste HTML	Switch to the "Paste HTML" tab, paste raw markup, click Screenshot

Keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl+S screenshot · Ctrl+D paste clipboard as source · Esc quit

Output defaults to Desktop/screenshot_<timestamp>.png. Use Save As… to pin a fixed path.

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Command-line interface

# Activate the venv first
venv\Scripts\activate

# Remote URL
htmlrf https://example.com -o example.png

# Local HTML file
htmlrf "C:\MyPages\report.html" -o report.png --width 1440

# See all options
htmlrf --help

Drag-and-drop CLI: drag an .html file onto screenshot.bat for an instant screenshot saved as screenshot.png in the same directory.

Options

Flag	Default	Description
input	(required)	URL or path to .html / .htm file
-o / --output	screenshot.png	Output PNG path
-w / --width	1920	Viewport width: 1280, 1440, 1920, 2560

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Project structure

html-renderfriend/
├── src/
│   └── htmlrf/
│       ├── __init__.py
│       ├── screenshot.py    # Core CLI + take_full_screenshot() shared with GUI
│       └── gui.py           # Drag-and-drop GUI (CustomTkinter + TkinterDnD2)
├── tests/
├── pyproject.toml           # Build metadata and dependencies (hatchling)
├── setup.bat                # One-click install script
├── screenshot.bat           # CLI drag-and-drop wrapper
├── gui.bat                  # GUI launcher
├── .gitignore
├── LICENSE                  # MIT
└── README.md

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Building a standalone EXE (optional)

pip install pyinstaller
pip install -e .
pyinstaller --onefile --windowed --name htmlrf src/htmlrf/gui.py

The resulting dist\htmlrf.exe bundles everything except the Chromium browser, which Playwright downloads on first run.

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Roadmap

• Batch processing — screenshot a list of URLs from a .txt file
• PDF export alongside PNG
• Configurable wait conditions and CSS injection
• GitHub Actions CI for cross-platform testing

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.

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Last updated: March 26, 2026