HTML and Markdown

Render your own HTML or Markdown to images and PDFs, and turn any web page into HTML or Markdown.

Render HTML

Send html instead of url to render your own markup. This is how you generate Open Graph images, certificates, receipts and invoices from a template.

curl -X POST "https://shotkit.net/api/take" \
  -H "X-Access-Key: YOUR_ACCESS_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"html":"<div style=\"display:grid;place-items:center;width:1200px;height:630px;background:#0f172a;color:#fff;font:600 72px system-ui\">Hello, world</div>","viewport_width":1200,"viewport_height":630,"format":"png"}' \
  --fail-with-body -o shot.png

Set the viewport to the size you want the image to be, or capture one element with selector (see below).

Things to know:

The page has no origin, so relative URLs don't resolve. Use absolute URLs for images, stylesheets and fonts, or inline them as data: URLs.
External resources such as Google Fonts load normally. Wait for them with wait_until=networkidle0 if they arrive late.
Cookies need an explicit Domain.
Use POST for anything but tiny snippets. Long HTML in a query string runs into URL length limits.

Capture just the element

To get an image exactly the size of your card, capture it with selector, and make the background transparent with omit_background (PNG only):

curl -X POST "https://shotkit.net/api/take" \
  -H "X-Access-Key: YOUR_ACCESS_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"html":"<div class=\"badge\" style=\"display:inline-block;padding:12px 20px;border-radius:999px;background:#16a34a;color:#fff;font:600 24px system-ui\">Passing</div>","selector":".badge","format":"png","omit_background":true,"device_scale_factor":2}' \
  --fail-with-body -o shot.png

HTML to PDF

Combine html with format=pdf for invoices and reports. See PDF.

curl -X POST "https://shotkit.net/api/take" \
  -H "X-Access-Key: YOUR_ACCESS_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"html":"<h1>Invoice #1042</h1><p>Total: $90.00</p>","format":"pdf","pdf_paper_format":"a4","pdf_margin":"2cm","pdf_print_background":true}' \
  --fail-with-body -o shot.pdf

Render Markdown

Send markdown to render it with a clean, readable stylesheet: headings, lists, tables, code and images.

curl -X POST "https://shotkit.net/api/take" \
  -H "X-Access-Key: YOUR_ACCESS_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"markdown":"# Release notes\n\n- Faster renders\n- Video output\n- Cookie banner blocking","format":"png","viewport_width":800,"viewport_height":400}' \
  --fail-with-body -o shot.png

Get HTML or Markdown out

With format=html or format=markdown, you get the page's content as text instead of an image. The page is loaded and rendered in a real browser first, so content added by JavaScript is included.

curl -X POST "https://shotkit.net/api/take" \
  -H "X-Access-Key: YOUR_ACCESS_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://example.com","format":"markdown","block_cookie_banners":true}' \
  --fail-with-body -o shot.md

Markdown output strips scripts and styles and is a compact way to feed pages to an LLM (see AI agents). Every other option still applies: selector returns only that element, click and scripts run first, and blocking removes clutter.

Option	Effect on HTML/Markdown output
`selector`	Returns only the matching element.
`include_shadow_dom`	Includes the content of shadow roots (web components).
`wait_for_selector`	Waits for client-rendered content before reading it.

A screenshot and the content in one request

metadata_content stores the page's HTML or Markdown next to the screenshot and returns its URL:

curl -X POST "https://shotkit.net/api/take" \
  -H "X-Access-Key: YOUR_ACCESS_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://example.com","response_type":"json","metadata_content":true,"metadata_content_format":"markdown"}' \
  --fail-with-body -o shot.json

{
  "screenshot_url": "https://shotkit.net/cdn/files/…/….jpg",
  "content": {
    "url": "https://shotkit.net/cdn/files/…/….md",
    "expires": "Fri, 09 Oct 2026 16:00:00 GMT",
    "format": "markdown"
  }
}