Page Layers » Frequently Asked Questions

Page Layers requires a Mac computer running OS X 10.9 Mavericks or newer. Page Layers is also tested and compatible with the latest macOS 11 Big Sur.

By default, Page Layers exports files for Photoshop CS 5 or newer (CS 6 and Creative Cloud versions all work fine). These are compatible with Pixelmator as well.

For older versions of Photoshop, use the format option “Photoshop (optimized for compatibility)” in the “Screenshot > Save as...” dialog:

Page Layers uses the same browser engine as Safari, so in general everything that works in Safari will work in Page Layers as well. There are a few known limitations when capturing a layered Photoshop file:

• Framesets are not supported (this HTML feature is deprecated in HTML5, iframes work fine)
• The CSS z-index attribute has a lot of special cases. In general Page Layers handles this very well, but you might find cases where layers come out in a different order in Photoshop as in the browser.
• Page Layers is built for pages that have a sane HTML element structure: It does its work by capturing an image for every HTML element of the page. In general this works very well, but if you have a site that has something like 3000+ elements the process might take a while and you might end up with a file that's unwieldy to handle in Photoshop.
• Pages that change its contents based on scroll positions are difficult to capture as a static image - see How does Page Layers handle JavaScript scrolling effects?.
• Animations will be disabled for capturing, SVG animations (like Lottie animations) will not run in Page Layers.

Page Layers is a website screenshot utility and by default it will capture text as rasterized pixel data. This is done intentionally to capture text exactly as a browser would render the text:

There is an option Generate text layers if you use Screenshot > Save as from the Page Layers main menu:

Please note: This option is limited in its capabilities - not all HTML text can be converted to Photoshop. If you activate this option, refresh text layers in Photoshop only as needed:

If text layers are refreshed automatically upon opening, use "Preferences > General > Reset All Warning Dialogs".

This will give you a pixel-perfect capture of your page, with the option to edit text as needed:

Page Layers supports both. Use the "∞" (Infinity) option in the size menu to capture the full document height:

Some web pages use JavaScript to change the scrolling behaviour: Content is made visible based on scroll position or positioned according to the scroll position to create 'parallax effects' where elements move separately in front of the page background.

When you capture a page that is larger than the browser window using the "∞" (Infinity) option in the size menu, Page Layers resizes the window to the size of the full page and captures this content. Often JavaScript scrolling code does not layout elements in a meaningful way for such a large browser window.

Unfortunately, there is nothing that Page Layers can do about this and often such scrolling effects cannot be represented in a static image.

A workaround is to capture individual screenshots using the fixed browser height option:

Yes! By default Page Layers uses the pixel density of your main display - it grabs ordinary screenshots on Non-Retina displays and HiDPI scale ×2 screenshots on Retina displays:

You can configure the scale from the size selector menu. This allows to grab HiDPI screenshots on ordinary displays and vice versa:

Page Layers supports both form-based and HTTP Basic authentication. Navigate to the login page in the Page Layers embedded browser and after logging in you can navigate to the page that you want to capture:

Workaround: Trusting the certificate in Safari will also make it trusted in Page Layers:

Another way to accept the certificate is to drag the certificate icon from the dialog to some folder and then drag the certificate file to the keychain and configure to trust this certificate there.

Yes! The App Store terms and conditions allow to install apps bought from the Mac App Store on every Mac that you personally own. When you buy the app in the Mac App Store, your purchase will be connected to your Apple ID. If you try to buy an app you've already bought, the App Store offers you to download it again for free.

To install the app on a new Mac, open the 'App Store' app and sign in with your Apple ID:

Then go to the 'Purchases' tab. You'll see a list of the apps you've purchased from which you can reinstall the app: