<br />

**Puppeteer** is a Node library that provides a high-level API to control headless Chrome or Chromium browsers over the DevTools Protocol. It can also be configured to use full (non-headless) Chrome or Chromium. 

> A **headless browser** is a web browser, without a graphical user interface, that is mainly used for automated testing.

# Features

Puppeteer enables you to do most of the things that you can do manually in the browser. These features include:

-  Generate screenshots and PDFs of pages.
- Crawl a SPA (Single-Page Application) and generate pre-rendered content (i.e., "SSR" (Server-Side Rendering)).
- Automate form submission, UI testing, keyboard input, etc.
- Create an up-to-date, automated testing environment. Run your tests directly in the latest version of Chrome using the latest JavaScript and browser features.
- Capture a timeline trace of your site to help diagnose performance issues.
- Test Chrome Extensions.

# Installation

To use Puppeteer in your project, run:
```
npm i puppeteer
```
> When you install Puppeteer, it downloads a recent version of Chromium by default.

There is also the `puppeteer-core` package, a version of Puppeteer that doesn't download any browser by default. To install this package, run:

```
npm i puppeteer-core
```

> Read more on the difference between puppeteer and puppeteer-core [here](https://www.educative.io/answers/puppeteer-vs-puppeteer-core).

# Code

An example code of using puppeteer that navigates to `https://www.educative.io`, takes a screenshot, and saves as `example.png`:

```js
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');

(async () => {
  const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.goto('https://www.educative.io');
  await page.screenshot({path: 'example.png'});

  await browser.close();
})();

```

What is Puppeteer?

 A headless browser is a web browser, without a graphical user interface, that is mainly used for automated testing.  Features Puppeteer enables you to do most of the things that you can do manually in the browser. These features include:  Generate screenshots and PDFs of pages. Crawl a SPA (Single-Page Application) and generate pre-rendered content (i.e., “SSR” (Server-Side Rendering)). Automate form submission, UI testing, keyboard input, etc. Create an up-to-date, automated testing environment. Run your tests directly in the latest version of Chrome using the latest JavaScript and browser features. Capture a timeline trace of your site to help diagnose performance issues. Test Chrome Extensions.  