Code screenshot (Carbon style) API

Turn source code into a beautiful image like carbon.now.sh: syntax highlighting for 29 languages, 9 themes, window, line numbers, highlighted lines.

GETPOSThttps://apibox.io.vn/v1/code-image

Images & Codes▶ Try it online

Send code and get a picture of it in a macOS-style window, ready for a blog post, a slide, a tweet or a Zalo / Slack message. Highlighting uses highlight.js (BSD-3) with 29 grammars registered one by one (JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Java, C, C++, C#, Go, Rust, PHP, Ruby, Swift, Kotlin, Dart, SQL, Bash, Shell, PowerShell, JSON, YAML, HTML / XML, CSS, SCSS, Markdown, Dockerfile, diff, INI / TOML, Lua, plain text) and language=auto detection. Themes: dracula (default), monokai, one-dark, github-dark, github-light, nord, night-owl, vscode-dark, solarized-light.

Options: title in the window bar, window=false for a plain card, line_numbers=true with first_line, highlight_lines=3,5-7, font_size, line_height, tab_size, outer padding with a background colour or a diagonal gradient (background2), shadow, and max_columns (longer lines are cut). Text is drawn from JetBrains Mono outlines (SIL OFL), which include Vietnamese, so comments such as // Tính tổng render correctly; characters outside the embedded fonts (emoji, CJK) are left blank with a warning.

Output: png (default, scale 2 for retina), svg (vector, glyphs as paths: identical everywhere) or json (SVG + PNG base64). No headless browser is used; up to 400 lines.

Parameters

Name	In	Type	Required	Default
`code`	body\|query	string	yes		Source code (max 30,000 characters, 400 lines); a raw `text/plain` body also works.
`language`	query\|body	string	no	`auto`	`auto` or one of: javascript, typescript, python, java, c, cpp, csharp, go, rust, php, ruby, swift, kotlin, dart, sql, bash, shell, powershell, json, yaml, xml, css, scss, markdown, dockerfile, diff, ini, lua, plaintext (aliases such as js, ts, py, sh, html work).
`theme`	query\|body	string	no	`dracula`	dracula, monokai, one-dark, github-dark, github-light, nord, night-owl, vscode-dark, solarized-light.
`format`	query\|body	string	no	`png`	`png`, `svg` or `json`.
`title`	query\|body	string	no		Window title, e.g. a file name.
`window`	query\|body	boolean	no	`true`	Draw the window bar with the three buttons.
`line_numbers`	query\|body	boolean	no	`false`	Show line numbers.
`first_line`	query\|body	number	no	`1`	Number of the first line.
`highlight_lines`	query\|body	string	no		Lines to highlight, e.g. `2,4-6`.
`font_size`	query\|body	number	no	`14`	Font size in px (8–40).
`line_height`	query\|body	number	no	`1.6`	Line height as a multiple of the font size (1–3).
`tab_size`	query\|body	number	no	`4`	Spaces per tab (1–8).
`padding`	query\|body	number	no	`32`	Outer margin in px (0–200).
`background`	query\|body	string	no	`#abb8c3`	Outer background colour or `transparent`.
`background2`	query\|body	string	no		Second colour for a diagonal gradient background.
`shadow`	query\|body	boolean	no	`true`	Soft shadow under the window.
`max_columns`	query\|body	number	no	`160`	Longer lines are cut (20–400).
`scale`	query\|body	number	no	`2`	PNG pixel ratio (1–4).

Example

curl -X POST "https://apibox.io.vn/v1/code-image" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"code":"const sum = (a, b) => a + b;\nconsole.log(sum(2, 3)); // 5","language":"javascript","format":"json"}'

const res = await fetch('https://apibox.io.vn/v1/code-image', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    Authorization: 'Bearer YOUR_API_KEY',
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    "code": "const sum = (a, b) => a + b;\nconsole.log(sum(2, 3)); // 5",
    "language": "javascript",
    "format": "json"
  }),
});
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);

import requests

res = requests.post(
    "https://apibox.io.vn/v1/code-image",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"},
    json={"code": "const sum = (a, b) => a + b;\nconsole.log(sum(2, 3)); // 5", "language": "javascript", "format": "json"},
    timeout=30,
)
print(res.json())

<?php
$ch = curl_init('https://apibox.io.vn/v1/code-image');
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST => 'POST',
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => ['Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY', 'Content-Type: application/json'],
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => '{"code":"const sum = (a, b) => a + b;\\nconsole.log(sum(2, 3)); // 5","language":"javascript","format":"json"}',
]);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
print_r(json_decode($response, true));

Response

{
  "language": "javascript",
  "theme": "dracula",
  "lines": 2,
  "width": 344,
  "height": 178,
  "scale": 2,
  "svg": "<svg xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\" xmlns:xlink=\"http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink\" width=\"344\" height=\"178\" viewBox=\"0 0 344 178\">…</svg>",
  "png_base64": "data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAArAAAAFkCAIAAABXYZ9F…",
  "warnings": [],
  "themes": [
    "dracula",
    "monokai",
    "one-dark",
    "github-dark",
    "github-light",
    "nord",
    "night-owl",
    "vscode-dark",
    "solarized-light"
  ]
}

Use cases

Code snippets for blog posts, slides and social media
Bots that post code images to Slack, Discord, Telegram or Zalo
Course and tutorial material with consistent styling
Documentation images generated in CI

FAQ

Can I use my own font or theme?

Not yet: the image always uses JetBrains Mono and one of the 9 built-in themes, so the output looks the same everywhere. You can change the outer background and the window title.

How is the language detected?

With language=auto, highlight.js scores the code against the registered grammars and keeps the best one; the result reports it. Set language explicitly for short snippets.

Why is an emoji missing?

Only Latin (including Vietnamese), Greek, common symbols, box drawing and math characters are in the embedded fonts. Missing characters are left blank and a warning is returned with format=json.

Code screenshot (Carbon style) API

Parameters

Example

Response

Use cases

FAQ

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