ScreenshotCrawler

User guide

How to capture, measure, edit and save, with every mouse and keyboard control. This guide is part of the add-on, so it works offline.

1. Capture a page

Click the Screenshot Crawler icon in the Chrome toolbar. The large button runs your default capture type. The arrow beside it opens the full list.

Capture type	What you get
Page + all panels	One image of the whole page with every scrolling area inside it expanded.
Visible area	Exactly what the window shows.
Full scrolling page	The outer page from top to bottom, with inner panels left as they are.
Select region	Drag a box around the part you want. `Esc` cancels.
One panel	Point at a scrolling area and click it, or press `Enter`, to capture it in full. `↑` moves the selection out to the surrounding area. `Esc` cancels.
Panels only	Lists the scrolling areas found on the page. Tick the ones you want and choose Capture selected. Each is saved separately.

Settings › Popup & shortcuts chooses the default capture type, and the order in which the types appear. It can also hide the ones you never use.

Chrome permissions

The toolbar click grants access to the current page. Site-wide permission is optional for saved guides and batch capture. For local files, turn on Allow access to file URLs on Chrome's extension details page. Browser settings pages and the Chrome Web Store cannot be scripted; use an ordinary web page to test full capture.

Delay

The Delay menu waits 3, 5 or 10 seconds before capturing, which gives you time to open a menu or hover over something. The toolbar icon counts down, and Cancel capture in the popup stops it.

Settings › Capture controls the repaint delay used between capture tiles, whether fixed overlays settle after the first tile, and whether panels are combined side by side.

Clean page

Clean page removes cookie banners, chat widgets and anything else in the way before you capture. Click a block on the page to remove it.

`[` and `]`	Shrink or grow the block under the pointer before you click.
`Ctrl`+`Z`	Undo the last removal.
`Enter`	Capture the cleaned page.
`Esc`	Cancel and put the page back.

The bar at the bottom also offers Article only, Hide all images and Hide controls, and lets you pick the capture type.

On-page hints

While you pick a panel or clean a page, a small card in the lower-left corner lists that tool's keys. It fades after a few seconds; point at it to keep it. The ruler readout in the lower-right corner does the same for rulers, listing the keys for the guide you are dragging or have selected.

The × on the card, or Hide tips in the readout, hides the hints for that one tool. Settings › Help & feedback › Show on-page hints turns them all off, and switching it back on brings back any you hid. Hints never appear in a capture.

Vector PDF

Vector PDF expands scrolling panels and opens Chrome print preview. Choose Save as PDF, review paper size, margins and backgrounds, then save. Text remains selectable where the page supports it; the site's print styling can change the layout. Close preview to restore the page. This is separate from the image-based editor PDF, and the extension cannot confirm whether you saved or canceled.

One-click capture

Settings › Popup & shortcuts › Quick Capture makes a click on the toolbar icon run your default capture straight away. Right-click the icon and choose Open capture menu to reach the full menu.

2. Rulers and guides

Open the popup, expand Rulers & guides and choose Show rulers. Rulers appear along the top and left of the page, measured in CSS pixels from the page's top-left corner.

Inset page moves the website inside the rulers so they cover nothing. Overlay page lays the rulers over the page instead. Settings › Rulers & guides › Ruler placement chooses the default. The page returns exactly to its original layout when rulers are turned off.

Add and place guides

Drag from the top ruler	Adds a horizontal guide.
Drag from the left ruler	Adds a vertical guide.
Drag a guide	Moves it. While you drag, the guide locks to the edge of the element under the pointer when it comes within 4 px, and that element is outlined. Keep moving and it lets go. An edge it has let go of stays off for the rest of that drag, so you can drop a guide just beside it.
`Alt` while dragging	Turns snapping off, so the guide goes exactly where you drop it.
`Alt`+click an element	Puts four guides on its edges in one step. Hold `Alt` first to see which element is outlined. The click does not reach the page, so a link there does not open. Every element you Alt+click keeps a pink outline, and its four guides dim so the outline stands out. The latest one, or the one you point at, shows its size. Pointing at a dimmed guide, or selecting it, brings it back to full strength.

Guides snap to an element's outer box. Where an image has transparent padding or text sits inside a taller line, drag with Alt held or finish with the arrow keys.

A guide is a position between two pixels, drawn on the pixel after it. So a guide on an element's left or top edge covers the element's first pixel, and one on its right or bottom edge covers the first pixel past it. Right minus left is then exactly the element's width.

Move a guide by exact amounts

Click a guide to select it. The selected guide turns orange and its position is printed on the ruler.

`←` `→`	Move a selected vertical guide 1 px.
`↑` `↓`	Move a selected horizontal guide 1 px.
`Shift`+arrow	Move it 10 px.

Keys typed into a text field on the page stay with that field.

Remove guides

Double-click a guide	Removes it.
`Delete` or `Backspace`	Removes the selected guide.
Click the corner square	Removes every guide. Clear guides in the popup does the same.

Measure

The readout in the lower-right corner shows the pointer position and how far it is from the nearest guide, such as "96 px right, 473 px down". While you drag or select a guide it also lists the keys that apply; On-page hints explains how to hide them.
Turn on Show guide spacing in the popup to label the gaps beside the selected guide. Show all guide gaps labels every gap.
With guide spacing on, point inside four guides to see the width and height of the box between them. A guide on an element's left edge and one on its right edge measure its full width.
Inside an element you Alt+clicked, its own size is shown, even where guides from other elements cross it. Moving or removing one of its four guides ends this for that element.
Copy measurements, in the readout or the popup, copies a plain-text report. It lists each element you Alt+clicked with its size, position and ratio, the gaps between neighbouring elements, and every guide position. A Worth checking section lists sizes, gaps and edges that differ by 1 or 2 px, which are usually mistakes. The same page always gives the same report.
Copy as JSON, beside it in the readout, copies the same measurements for a script or an AI tool.
Settings › Rulers & guides › Spacing scale set to 4 px or 8 px adds any size or gap off that grid to Worth checking, with the nearest value on it.

Keep and reuse guides

Keep guides after reload in the popup saves the guides for that page and puts them back when it reloads. Chrome asks for permission the first time you turn it on.
Settings › Rulers & guides › Include rulers and guides in captures keeps guides in your screenshots. It is off by default. Visible-area and region captures include the rulers too; longer captures keep the guides without the repeating ruler strips.
Settings › Rulers & guides › Guide templatesPro saves a set of guides and applies it automatically on matching pages.

3. Edit a capture

Most captures open in the editor. Settings › Results & saving › After capture can copy or save them instead.

Zoom

Use Fit, 100%, − and +, or hold Ctrl and scroll. A touchpad pinch zooms too.

Crop region

Crop opens with the whole picture selected. Drag a handle or any part of a side to resize the selection, or drag anywhere else to draw a new box. Drag inside a box you drew to move it. The ratio buttons fix the shape, from 1:1 to A4 and Letter, and Flip turns it on its side.

`Enter` or double-click inside	Creates the crop and copies it to the clipboard.
`←` `→` `↑` `↓`	Move the box 1 px. With `Shift`, 10 px.
`Alt`+arrow	Resize the box from its lower-right corner.
`Esc`	Cancel.

Annotate and redact

Key	Tool
`A`	Arrow
`R`	Box
`T`	Text
`B`	Blur
`H`	Highlight
`D`	Redact, which paints solid black
`S`	Sticker
`Ctrl`+`Z`	Undo
`Enter`	Apply
`Esc`	Cancel

Shift+click a mark to select and move it. In a text box, Enter starts a new line, Ctrl+Enter finishes the text and Esc abandons it. A redacted capture is exported without a PDF text layer, so the covered text cannot be recovered.

Read text, articles and colours

Read textPro: drag a box over the capture to get its text. It uses the page's own text where it can and reads the pixels in English, offline, where it cannot.
Extract article shows the page's main article as plain text, when the capture found one.
Pick colour: click the capture to copy that pixel's hex value. Esc cancels.
Esc closes the text panel.

Captured items

Panels, crops, annotations and comparisons each become an item in the row above the capture. ← → Home and End move between them. Rename an item, then press Enter to keep the name or Esc to cancel.

4. Save and export

Save PNG, Save JPEG and Save WebP save to your download folder. Save AVIF appears when Chrome can write AVIF.
Copy image puts the capture on the clipboard. If Chrome needs a focused page, open the result and choose Copy image there.
Save as PDF uses the page size, margins, header, footer and watermark set in Settings › Results & saving. A searchable text layer inside the PDF is Pro.
Save as… opens Chrome's save dialog so you can choose the folder and name.
Open folder shows the last saved file.
Save all saves every panel from a Panels only capture.

Settings › Results & saving › Ask where to save each file makes each image or raster PDF export open the dialog. Chrome's own download preference may also prompt. Native Vector PDF always uses print preview.

ComparePro

Set baseline stores the current capture. Later, Compare marks what changed against it, and Export report saves the result as HTML and JSON.

Settings › History & storage manages saved capture history and comparison baselines.

5. Screen recording

Choose Screen recording in the popup to record the current tab as a WebM video. With Auto-scroll on, the page scrolls itself while recording. Pick a panel records only the selected panel and scrolls it instead of the whole page. Chrome asks for the optional recording permission when you first start.

Open the popup again and choose Stop recording and save, or Discard recording. Free records up to 10 seconds with a watermark. Pro records up to five minutes without one.

Settings › Recording sets the scroll speed, the start delay and smoother 15 frames per second recording. Chrome uses a tab stream rather than repeated screenshots, and records without audio.

The original tab keeps recording when you switch tabs. Keep it open. Navigation can stop auto-scroll; a selected panel that no longer exists ends its recording and saves the captured part. Stop recording before using Vector PDF, which temporarily changes the page layout.

6. Batch capturePro

Choose Batch capture at the foot of the popup. Paste addresses one per line, up to 500. Lines starting with # are ignored.

Choose a folder inside Downloads, a capture type and the file type. PNG and raster PDF use the chosen subfolder. Vector PDF opens Chrome print preview for each address; you must choose Save as PDF and the destination each time. The subfolder setting cannot control native printing.
Article only keeps each page's main article and drops the rest.
More batch options combines PNG or raster PDF captures into one file, with an optional title page for PDF, and sets how long to let each page settle after it loads. Native Vector PDFs cannot be combined automatically.
Stop ends the run. Skip drops an address that has not started yet. The run continues if you close the batch page.

7. Keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are off by default. Turn them on in Settings › Popup & shortcuts › Keyboard shortcuts. Choose Manage Chrome keyboard shortcuts to assign keys on Chrome's extension shortcuts page. Conflicts with another extension can leave a suggested key unassigned.

Suggested key	Action
`Alt`+`Shift`+`V`	Capture the visible area
`Alt`+`Shift`+`F`	Capture the full scrolling page
`Alt`+`Shift`+`P`	Pick one panel
`Alt`+`Shift`+`R`	Select a region
Assign a key in Chrome	Stop recording and save
Assign a key in Chrome	Discard the recording

The keys inside each tool, such as the annotate letters and the ruler arrow keys, always work and are listed in the sections above.

8. Free and Pro

Free includes all six capture types at full length, Clean page, Vector PDF, rulers and guides, crop, annotate, redact, colour picking and every image format. Free still images carry a thin credit line along the bottom edge, which you can crop off.

Pro adds:

Batch capture from a list of addresses
Capture presets for each site
Saved guide templates
Export and import of presets and templates
A searchable text layer in PDFs
Read text from any part of a capture, offline
Compare against a saved baseline, with a report
Watermark colour and opacity
Screen recording up to five minutes without a watermark
Still images without the credit line

Settings › Presets & transfer exports and imports capture presets and guide templates.

Pro is the US$5 early-adopter price, paid once. Existing purchasers keep Pro permanently. Enter your key in Settings › Pro licence.

9. Privacy and help

Captures, text and settings stay on your computer. The add-on sends nothing to a server and collects no analytics.

If a page captures incorrectly, try the most specific capture type first and keep the tab in front while it runs. Then email support@screenshotcrawler.com with the page address, your Chrome version and the capture type you used.