HTML to Image

[eluser]slowgary[/eluser]
[quote author="chandlerou" date="1242334831"]I'm looking to create and host this myself, not relying on other services such as browsers shots servers etc...[/quote]

I think your server would need to be running a GUI, and you'd do it with a few command lines called by PHP's exec().

You could also use something like html2ps, I think it's basically a browser. It processes all HTML/CSS & images and renders the page just like a browser would. There are some downsides to this method though. Using html2ps will provide a render unlike any other browser. So you couldn't tell your users "This screenshot taken in Firefox". A command line would allow you to take the screenshots in different browsers. Also, if development of html2ps ends, you may in the future find yourself in a position where your service cannot render pages using the latest standards, whereas with issuing system calls you could just upgrade the browser.

It comes down to what your intentions are.