# Curl

Generate PNG, JPG, or WebP images from your terminal with cURL.

[Live demo](https://htmlcsstoimage.com/#demo) [Get an API key](https://htmlcsstoimage.com/dashboard)

## Generate an image with cURL

Run this command in your terminal to generate an image using the API.

For more details on how this works, see [Creating an image](/getting-started/using-the-api#creating-an-image).

```bash
# Replace UserID and APIKey with your credentials from the dashboard https://htmlcsstoimage.com/dashboard
curl -X POST https://hcti.io/v1/image -u 'UserID:APIKey'\
     -d html="<div class='ping'>Pong ✅</div>" \
     -d css=".ping { padding: 20px; font-family: 'sans-serif'; }"
```

## Response

The API will return a json payload with the URL to your new image.

```json
{ "url":"https://hcti.io/v1/image/1eecf460-e2e5-4db1-9db6-cf862c34a744" }
```

## Advanced example

Here we use additional parameters. Note that each line ends with a `\`.

```bash
# Replace UserID and APIKey with your credentials from the dashboard https://htmlcsstoimage.com/dashboard
curl -X POST https://hcti.io/v1/image -u 'UserID:APIKey'\
     -d html="<div class='ping'>Pong ✅</div>" \
     -d css=".ping { padding: 20px; font-family: 'sans-serif'; }" \
     -d ms_delay=1000 \
     -d selector=".ping"
```

## Loading in contents from a file

In this example, we grab the contents of a local HTML file and pass them in to the `html` param.

Use `--data-urlencode html@path/to/file.html` to read and encode the HTML file directly.

```bash
curl -X POST https://hcti.io/v1/image -u 'UserID:APIKey'\
     --data-urlencode html@path/to/file.html \
     -d css=".ping { padding: 20px; font-family: 'sans-serif'; }"
```

## Need help?

Talk to a human. Email [support@htmlcsstoimage.com](mailto:support@htmlcsstoimage.com) and we’ll help you get started.