Convert Text to Images with JavaScript

June 24, 2017

TallTweets uses the HTML2Canvas library to convert text into PNG images. The generated images is converted into base64 (data URI) which is then sent to the server over a HTTP POST request for uploading to twitter.

Unlike the screenshots tool that performs the screen capture on the server side using a headless browser, here the image is generated directly in the user’s browser.

<!-- Input HTML text is inside the DIV -->
<div id="talltweets">The <b>quick brown fox</b> jumped over the <i>lazy dog</i>.</div>

<!-- The PNG image will be added here -->
<div style="background:yellow;padding:10px">
  <img id="textScreenshot" src="" />
</div>

<!-- Include the HTMl2Canvas library -->
<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/html2canvas/0.4.1/html2canvas.min.js"></script>

<script>
  html2canvas(document.getElementById('talltweets'), {
    onrendered: function (canvas) {
      var screenshot = canvas.toDataURL('image/png');
      document.getElementById('textScreenshot').setAttribute('src', screenshot);
    },
  });
</script>

Javascript

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Amit Agarwal

Google Developer Expert, Google Cloud Champion

Amit Agarwal is a Google Developer Expert in Google Workspace and Google Apps Script. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science (I.I.T.) and is the first professional blogger in India.

Amit has developed several popular Google add-ons including Mail Merge for Gmail and Document Studio. Read more on Lifehacker and YourStory