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I need to take a screenshot of an entire webpage. The trick is that I need the screenshot to include the entire contents of a single element that does not fit in the screen.

It is a single column table that has a scrollbar due to its height. It is not an IFRAME (which would be simple to load in its own tab).

The column contains formatted text and a few small images.

For long web pages that scroll, it is trivial to perform this task. But how can it be accomplished when it contains an individual element within the page that scrolls?

To be clear, I need to capture the entire page, not just the element itself.

I would like to accomplish this using Firefox on Windows.

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  • Possibly useful: Firefox plugin to save complete rendered page as image on Software Recommendations.
    – user
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 10:57
  • If I understand correctly, the scrolling element in question is probably being forced to less than it's full height. Setting the height style attribute to auto on that element may help.
    – tehwalris
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 18:47
  • There is a tool we use at my work called SnagIt that will do this (I believe).
    – Steve
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 19:25
  • @tehwalris That's a great idea. Thanks! I'll give that a try as well. I could even create a CSS overlay to do that automatically.
    – End Antisemitic Hate
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 21:36

10 Answers 10

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My suggestion is to use the Firefox's built in feature that allows you to take screenshots of single DOM element.

Just pop open the developer tools → Find the element → Right Click and take screenshot

enter image description here

It didn't work on one of my internal site so cannot say it will work for all.

Update after OP's Edit:

If you intend to record full page along with whole of DOM element content as shown below, you should live edit the height of DOM element but...

enter image description here

It is going to push a lot of DOM elements out of viewport and screenshot or AFAIK any other tool will not capture it, which beats your purpose I think.

Read below from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenshot

A screenshot, screen capture, screen cap, cap, screen dump, or screengrab is an image taken by a person to record the visible items displayed on the monitor, television, or other visual output device in use.

If I really had to do it your way, I would either create a GIF or take two screenshots one full page and other only of the DOM element to merge into one.

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  • 1
    Thank you so much for your answer (and great image!), but unfortunately this does not answer the question. I need to take a screenshot of the entire page including the element, not just of the element itself.
    – End Antisemitic Hate
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 19:14
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    @RockPaperLizard actually @pun's answer DOES answer your question... he just didn't apply it to your use case. You can follow his answer but select the <body> element and it will give you the desired screenshot.
    – Digital Chris
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 19:34
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    If you edit the height of the DOM element so there are no internal scrollbars then use FireShot to capture the whole page, it should work.
    – user76225
    Commented Jun 14, 2016 at 17:52
  • I was able to get one screenshot like this, but no more. It still produces the camera shutter sound, just puts nothing in the clipboard. Same goes for the command in developer toolbar, no file gets created.
    – MrFox
    Commented Dec 22, 2017 at 14:16
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    @MrFox A png file is created in the Downloads folder.
    – AxiomaticNexus
    Commented Aug 15, 2019 at 15:38
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2021 Edit

The toolbar was removed from FF. But you can still access the commands by typing them in the console prefixed with a :. So for screenshots use

:screenshot --fullpage fullpage.png

or

:screenshot --selector #hot-network-questions fullpage.png

Old Answer

You can use the screenshot command from the Developer Toolbar:

  1. Press Shift + F2 to open the toolbar or select it from the Web Developer Tools menu.

  2. In the toolbar, type the command screenshot --fullpage fullpage.png.

To capture a single element you can use its css selector with the --selector flag e.g.

screenshot --selector #hot-network-questions

will get you the image below

enter image description here

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    @RockPaperLizard I found another post with the same answer and OP was edited by you.
    – clhy
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 8:55
  • @pun Thank you. But I need to take a screenshot of the entire page with the element expanded, not just the element itself.
    – End Antisemitic Hate
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 19:13
  • I was able to get one screenshot like this, but no more. It still produces the camera shutter sound, just not the file. Same goes for right-clicking the element in developer mode and copying it that way. No image gets send to the clipboard.
    – MrFox
    Commented Dec 22, 2017 at 14:13
  • How / Where do you open the toolbar? I tried shift + F2 nothing happened
    – one-hand-octopus
    Commented Feb 16, 2021 at 15:10
  • @user122973 I don't think the toolbar still exists. However, if you open your dev tools and go to settings in the hamburger menu next to the close button. Under Available Toolbox Buttons there's a Take a screenshot of the entire page. This adds a camera button next to the responsive view button. The screenshots are saved in the Downloads folder for me on MacOS. This doesn't take a screenshot of the element only though.
    – topher
    Commented Feb 16, 2021 at 16:21
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Using Firefox's Responsive Design Mode, set the width to something normal and the height such that it's enough to encompass the entire page. Then click the screenshot button (the camera icon).

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    After much struggling with taking a screenshot of a stubborn web page, I remembered your tip. It worked great (and was the only answer here that worked for this specific page). Thank you! The only challenge was setting the height to the appropriate value. I found the best technique was to go into Developer Mode while in Responsive Design Mode and inspect the layout of the tall element to determine its new height. If you have a better technique, please let us know! :)
    – End Antisemitic Hate
    Commented Feb 29, 2020 at 6:17
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There is Software called Snagit that may solve your issue. This software can take the screen shot in different types, like a scrolling window and also can record video.

It is a paid application, but does have a trial available as well.

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5

I use Screenpresso. It allows you to take a scrolling screenshot. Basically you take a screenshot, scroll down and take another and so on, then Screenpresso stitches them together. Screenpresso is also free.

FYI, the shortcut keys for scrolling screenshot is WindowsKey+Shift+PrintScreen. You then need to click the window you would like to scroll. When you get to the next part to screenshot, right click, scroll down, right click and so on. Whe you are finished, left click and they will get stitched together. Make sure to get some overlap on each screenshot so the stitching process works better.

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There is an extension called Nimbus Screen Capture which is perfectly suited to this task.

You have the option to capture:

  • the visible part of the page (useful to not include the browser elements as opposed to alt+Print Scrn)
  • a fragment of the page (whereby you can hover over regions on the screen in order to find the fragment you want - these regions correspond to their underlying HTML elements)
  • selected area (you manually click and drag where you want the screenshot, supports scrolling while dragging)
  • the entire page

nimbus

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  • Thank you for your answer, I appreciate it. Unfortunately, it does not look like Nimbus Screen Capture can capture the entire contents of a scrolling element within a page. If I'm mistaken, could you provide more detail on how to accomplish this with that tool?
    – End Antisemitic Hate
    Commented Jun 14, 2016 at 16:22
  • @RockPaperLizard you are right, it doesn't seem to support this - I had thought that the fragment mode would cover scrolling elements, or that the selected area mode would work but, while the window can be scrolled in this mode, it seems that the scrolling elements can't.
    – Keith Hall
    Commented Jun 15, 2016 at 8:46
  • Thanks for confirming I just wasn't seeing it. Maybe they will add that functionality to a future version.
    – End Antisemitic Hate
    Commented Jun 15, 2016 at 9:33
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2024 Answer

I found a solution.

  1. Open the devtools (F12)
  2. Set device height to 9999px: enter image description here
  3. Then right click the dom-node that has the scrollbar and do a screenshot: enter image description here

That's it!

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    That's very clever. Thanks for providing a current answer. Upvoted.
    – End Antisemitic Hate
    Commented Apr 22 at 9:32
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Options to fit everything on one page:

  • Use <Ctrl>- to fit everything on one page
  • Rotate your screen to portrait mode
  • Use a second screen in portrait mode and locate it below the first one
  • Combine all of the above

Another option is to take a screen shot of the upper part of what you want to capture. Scroll down, take the next screen shoot. Repeat this until you've captured everything.
Optionally: combine the screen shots into one big image using an image editor (e.g. gimp).

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    Until I got to item #4, I thought you were only suggesting to combine all the items! I was imagining having 20 screens and stacking them one on top of the other... LOL. Then I got to #4, and learned that you meant the items to be used individually or combined.
    – End Antisemitic Hate
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 7:20
  • But if you zoom out the page, there is no way to scale it back out without distortion.
    – NiCk Newman
    Commented Jun 14, 2016 at 13:17
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To take screenshots you can add an Extension like easy screenshot. Then It will be much easier for you to take screen shots.

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For DESKTOP programs, with scrolling window ApowerSoft capture did the job for me.

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