Screenshots & PDF

Screenshots

Command	Description
screenshot	Screenshot of the viewport
screenshot [target]	Screenshot of a specific element
screenshot --filename=<f>	Save with a custom filename
screenshot --type=<png|jpeg|webp>	Image format
screenshot --full-page	Full scrollable page instead of the viewport
screenshot --hires	Capture device pixels instead of CSS pixels

Without --filename, the file is named page-{timestamp}.{png|jpeg|webp} in the output directory. The format is inferred from the filename extension when --type is not given, and defaults to PNG.

$ playwright-cli screenshot
# Screenshot saved to .playwright-cli/page-2026-03-15T10-22-01-118Z.png

$ playwright-cli screenshot e15
# Screenshot of element e15

$ playwright-cli screenshot --filename=login-page.png
$ playwright-cli screenshot --full-page --filename=full-page.png
$ playwright-cli screenshot --filename=preview.jpeg
$ playwright-cli screenshot --hires --filename=retina.png

--hires accounts for the device pixel ratio, which makes text legible in a captured design review — but its pixel coordinates no longer line up with the CSS-pixel coordinates that mouse commands take.

PDF export

playwright-cli pdf                      # save as page-{timestamp}.pdf
playwright-cli pdf --filename=page.pdf  # save with custom name

When to use screenshots

Screenshots complement accessibility snapshots:

Use case	Best tool
Interacting with elements	Accessibility snapshot (refs)
Verifying visual layout	Screenshot
Canvas/chart content	Screenshot
Documenting a bug	Screenshot
Understanding page structure	Accessibility snapshot
Reading text content	Accessibility snapshot

Snapshots

For accessibility tree output (not a visual capture):

playwright-cli snapshot                 # full page snapshot
playwright-cli snapshot --filename=f    # custom filename
playwright-cli snapshot [target]        # element snapshot
playwright-cli snapshot --depth=N       # limit depth
playwright-cli snapshot --boxes         # include bounding boxes
playwright-cli find "text"              # search instead of capturing

See Snapshots for details on the format and usage.