How to capture PDF screenshots using PhantomJS headless browser

Other Questions Headless Browser
1

I’m trying to load a PDF file from my AWS S3 bucket and capture screenshots using PhantomJS, but I keep getting failure status every time I attempt this. I’ve searched through documentation but can’t find a clear solution for handling PDF files.

var webpage = require('webpage').create();
var pdfUrl = 'https://storage.example.com/files/document.pdf';

webpage.open(pdfUrl, function(result) {
    if (result !== 'success') {
        console.log('Failed to load:', result);
        phantom.exit();
    }
    console.log('Load result:', result);
    phantom.exit();
});

My main objective is to take screenshots of the PDF content and then add some overlay graphics using jQuery. Can this be accomplished with just PhantomJS and jQuery, or do I need additional tools for PDF processing?

2

PhantomJS can’t handle PDFs - it’s built for HTML/CSS/JS, not PDF documents. That’s why you’re getting the failure status when you try opening PDF URLs directly.

I hit this same problem last year. My fix was using PDF.js as a workaround. Create an HTML wrapper that embeds PDF.js to render the PDF, then screenshot that HTML page with PhantomJS. This way you can add jQuery overlays since everything’s now DOM-based.

Or skip the hassle and use server-side tools like ImageMagick or Puppeteer with Chrome’s PDF support. Way more reliable than forcing PhantomJS to do something it wasn’t designed for.

3

phantomjs just isn’t made for pdfs. try converting ur pdf to images using something like pdf2pic, then take screenshots of those images. or use pdf.js to display it in a browser where phantom can capture. way easier!

4

Been wrestling with the same PDF capture issue for a client project. PhantomJS treats PDFs as binary downloads, not renderable content - that’s why you keep failing. Here’s what worked for me: convert PDF pages to images first using pdf-poppler or another server-side tool, then use PhantomJS to screenshot HTML pages displaying those images. You’ll get the DOM manipulation you need for jQuery overlays. Or just switch to Puppeteer - it handles PDF rendering way better since it uses Chrome’s native PDF viewer. Migration’s pretty straightforward and you’ll get more reliable results.