Wait for the page in Python with requests

Both knobs ride the same JSON body as the url. settle is a plain hold in milliseconds after the page loads; waitFor goes further and blocks until a css selector matches, capped at ten seconds or the settle budget, whichever is smaller. A selector that never matches fails the render rather than shipping a half-painted page, so pick something the page reliably shows: this recipe waits for a paragraph.

The recipe

import requests
from pathlib import Path

ORIGIN = "https://webcapture.io"

receipt = requests.post(
    f"{ORIGIN}/v1/convert",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer wc_your_key", "Content-Type": "application/json"},
    json={"url": "https://example.com/", "settle": 1500, "waitFor": "p"},
    timeout=60,
).json()

# the download url names /v1/conversions/<id>.pdf at the serving origin
pdf = requests.get(
    receipt["download"],
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer wc_your_key"},
    timeout=60,
)
pdf.raise_for_status()
Path("page.pdf").write_bytes(pdf.content)

settle takes 0 to 10000 milliseconds and replaces the endpoint's own default hold; waitFor takes a selector of 1 to 500 characters validated by Chromium. The two compose: the selector wait runs first, the settle hold runs on top of it, and both sit inside the same render budget the 60 second client timeout already covers. A late chart, a web font, or a client-side table is what these two fields are for.

Same-key GET: 401 without it; 404 for another key.

The fields this recipe uses

• settle: milliseconds to hold after the page loads before the capture, 0 to 10000; absent keeps the endpoint's default (350).
• waitFor: a css selector, 1 to 500 characters, the render waits for after load, capped at min(settle, 10 seconds); a selector that never matches fails the render.

Related

• Next: Get a free key to run this Python recipe, or read the API docs.
• More recipes: Python: convert from a URL, Node: poll an async render, TypeScript: dark mode.
• The webcapture API reference: every field the convert endpoint admits, with the response shapes and the error table.
• The recipes hub: the same endpoint in the other languages.
• Going deeper: the formatting guide explains why late-painting pages print early, and what each wait mode fixes.
• The free URL to PDF tool: try the render in a browser before you wire the call.

Method

Source: convert field reference, checked 2026-10-05. Corrections.