[PLUG] render html to png image

[Jeff_W]

> Are there any open source tools out there that can render an html
> page to a png (or other) image, automatically?  Yes, I know you
> can display the page on a screen, then screen capture the image,
> but I am looking for something I can automate, perhaps as a script
> that spiders a directory.

As others mentioned, once you've got PS/PDF your task is much simpler.
I think the hard part is rendering the web page appropriately. Given the
way web sites are put together these days you basically need a rendering
app that approaches the sophistication of the major web browsers (firefox,
IE, Opera) to get pages into a state appropriate for image generation.

I've used HTMLDOC[1] with fairly good results most of the time.  It will
generate either PS or PDF output and can be run from the command line so
it's script-able.  Comes in two flavors, free and paid.  Guessing you'd
need the later if your project is income producing.

I'm pretty sure you could get the Mozilla + ImageMagick code to do the
same thing - just takes time/money...

[1] http://www.htmldoc.org/

Jeff