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There is no source-confirmed, universal Internet Explorer fix for overlapping text in html2canvas. The reliable approach is to isolate whether the overlap exists in the live page or only in the generated canvas, record the exact html2canvas and IE versions, verify fonts and computed typography, and test a narrowly scoped change in html2canvas’s cloned document. Current html2canvas documentation lists Chrome/Chromium, Firefox and Safari as supported evergreen browsers; Internet Explorer is not listed. An older FAQ’s “IE9+” statement is historical, not evidence of current support.

Why is text overlapping in my html2canvas output in Internet Explorer?

html2canvas does not copy the browser’s already-rasterized page. It traverses the DOM, reads the styles it understands, and constructs its own representation before painting to a canvas. The project documentation warns that the result may not exactly match the browser’s real rendering and states: “As a result, it is only able to render correctly properties that it understands, meaning there are many CSS properties which do not work.”

That design makes typography differences possible. A font may not have loaded when capture starts, a CSS property may be unsupported or partially implemented, or IE’s layout and document mode may resolve dimensions differently from the renderer. The overlap can therefore be caused by a mismatch between the source page, the cloned page used for capture, and the canvas—not necessarily by one bad CSS declaration.

No supplied source confirms a single IE-specific CSS tweak that fixes every overlap. Treat any proposed change as a hypothesis to test against your exact markup, fonts, html2canvas release, IE version, document mode and operating system.

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First establish where the defect occurs

  1. Inspect the live page. If letters already overlap before capture, fix the page’s normal layout first. html2canvas cannot correct a defect that is present in the source rendering.
  2. Inspect the canvas at native size. If the page is correct but the canvas is wrong, the problem is in style interpretation, font availability, text measurement or positioning during reconstruction.
  3. Check later export steps. If the canvas looks correct but a PDF or image conversion overlaps text, the additional export library is the more likely source.
  4. Reduce the reproduction. Capture one element containing only a few lines of text. Remove unrelated scripts, animations and components until the smallest example still fails.

Save the minimal HTML, CSS, text, font declarations and capture call. Also record the exact html2canvas version, Internet Explorer version, Windows version, document mode and whether the page is loaded from an intranet or a public origin. A historical compatibility statement cannot establish behavior for every later build or configuration.

Check the typography that html2canvas actually sees

Confirm that the intended font is available

Capture only after the intended web font has loaded. In a legacy page, a fallback font can have different glyph widths and line metrics, causing wrapping and apparent collisions. Verify the font files load successfully in IE, that the family name in the declaration matches the family used by the element, and that capture is not triggered immediately after inserting the text.

For a diagnostic reproduction, temporarily use a known system font and compare the output. If the overlap disappears, the font-loading path or font metrics deserve investigation. This test does not prove that fonts are the sole cause; it narrows the variables.

Compare computed values

Use IE’s developer tools, or log values from the element, and compare them with the values expected in the cloned content:

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  • font-family, including the actual fallback selected;
  • font-size and the unit used;
  • font-weight, font-style and text-transform;
  • letter-spacing, especially negative values;
  • line-height, including whether it is unitless, a length or normal;
  • element width, padding, white-space and word-wrapping rules;
  • positioning, transforms and any fractional coordinates.

Change one value at a time in the minimal case. A line-height change can alter vertical placement, while letter-spacing or a fallback font can alter horizontal advances. These are diagnostic checks, not guaranteed cures.

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Use onclone for a rendering-only workaround

The html2canvas configuration reference documents onclone. It runs after html2canvas has cloned the document and lets you modify that clone without changing the live page. This is the safest place to test a targeted typography override.

html2canvas(document.getElementById('receipt'), {
  onclone: function (clonedDocument) {
    var clonedText = clonedDocument.querySelector('.receipt-copy');
    if (!clonedText) return;

    // Diagnostic override: adjust only the cloned capture.
    clonedText.style.fontFamily = 'Arial, sans-serif';
    clonedText.style.letterSpacing = '0';
    clonedText.style.lineHeight = '1.25';
  }
}).then(function (canvas) {
  document.getElementById('preview').appendChild(canvas);
});

Replace the selector and values with those from your reproduction. Keep the override as narrow as possible; do not rewrite the entire page in the callback. Compare three captures: the unmodified clone, the clone with one change, and the clone with the final tested combination. If the output improves only in one IE/document-mode combination, document that limitation rather than presenting the override as universal.

The same callback can remove a transform, set an explicit width, or hide a problematic decorative element while you identify the trigger. Restore each change after testing unless it is an intentional, version-tested compatibility rule.

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Do not confuse canvas-size failures with text overlap

A blank or clipped result is a different symptom from overlapping glyphs. A legacy html2canvas FAQ lists Internet Explorer’s maximum canvas width and height as 8,192 pixels and notes that limits vary by browser, operating system and hardware. Check the capture dimensions when a large full-page image is blank or truncated; that historical limit is not established as a cause of overlapping text.

For a large page, first capture a smaller element. Then test explicit viewport and output dimensions, or split the page into sections. The configuration reference also documents options such as scale and viewport dimensions, but changing scale alone is not a confirmed text-overlap fix.

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Check Internet Explorer document mode

Microsoft documentation says IE9 and IE10 support a 2-D canvas context and describes an intranet compatibility meta tag for forcing standards mode. An unexpected document mode can change layout calculations, so record the mode as part of the reproduction and test standards mode where your application permits it.

Microsoft cautions against using that compatibility meta tag for production webpages. Treat it as an investigation aid, not an html2canvas repair. If the page must remain in a legacy mode, test every mode you actually support and keep the workaround scoped to that environment.

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What related issue reports do—and do not—prove

A historical project issue reported negative letter-spacing problems in Chrome and noted that letterRendering: true did not help that reporter. It is not an Internet Explorer reproduction and is not an authoritative prescription. Do not add that option as a blanket fix without measuring your own output.

A pull request opened in July 2024 proposed work involving text-node handling, line-height discrepancies in non-Firefox browsers and text-decoration positioning at high resolutions. The retrieved page showed it as open. That demonstrates that related rendering defects have been reported; it does not demonstrate that an IE-specific correction shipped.

A complete diagnostic workflow

1. Freeze the variables

  • Record html2canvas version and the script URL or package lock entry.
  • Record IE version, Windows version and document mode.
  • Save the exact HTML, CSS, fonts and capture options.
  • Disable animations, transitions and dynamic content for the test.

2. Build the smallest failing case

Capture one element and a few text lines. Remove images, pseudo-elements and unrelated layout containers. State whether the live page or only the canvas is wrong.

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3. Verify fonts and computed typography

Test a known system font, then compare family, size, weight, spacing, line-height, width and positioning. Wait until the intended font is available before calling html2canvas.

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4. Apply one clone-only change

Use onclone to change one suspected property. Capture again in the exact IE environment. Keep a record of which combinations pass and fail.

5. Compare with a documented evergreen browser

Run the same reproduction in Chrome/Chromium, Firefox and Safari, the browser families listed in current project documentation. If only IE fails, weigh the maintenance cost of a tested legacy override against moving capture to a supported browser.

6. Decide whether to keep or replace the capture path

Preserve the workaround when the affected IE/document-mode combinations are limited, the output is stable, and the clone override is understandable. Consider a server-side or supported-browser capture path when many legacy combinations must be maintained or the required CSS behavior is outside html2canvas’s documented support.

Common symptoms, causes and fixes

Symptom Likely investigation Practical next step
Text overlaps only in the canvas Unsupported or differently interpreted typography, font fallback or clone dimensions Compare computed values and test a narrow onclone override
Text overlaps on the live page too Source CSS or document-mode layout Fix the page first; then recapture
Only a web font causes the problem Font not loaded or different metrics in IE Wait for the font, test a system font and verify family names
Large captures are blank or clipped Canvas dimensions or browser resource limits Reduce dimensions or split the capture; do not label this a glyph-overlap fix
letterRendering changes nothing The historical issue report’s behavior may not match your case Remove the option unless your own reproduction shows a benefit
IE alone fails while modern browsers work IE is outside the current documented evergreen support set Test a maintained clone workaround or move capture to a supported browser
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Support on Ko-Fi

Performance and reliability considerations

Minimal reproductions are faster and produce more trustworthy comparisons than full-page captures. Full-page rendering increases DOM traversal, memory use and canvas dimensions; high-resolution scaling increases them further. Capture only the required element while diagnosing typography, then test the production size separately.

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Wait for asynchronous content and fonts before capture, and make the page deterministic during tests. A workaround that depends on a race—such as capturing before a font finishes loading—will appear intermittent. Record the exact browser and mode for every regression test because a result in one IE configuration does not establish behavior in another.

Or skip the browser setup

If your goal is a reliable website image rather than preserving an IE-local canvas pipeline, ScreenshotNeo provides a website screenshot API and MCP server. It accepts a URL and returns PNG, JPEG, WebP or PDF. Before capture it accepts cookie or consent banners and removes more than 60 known consent platforms, newsletter popups and chat widgets; each step can be turned off. Bot checks or CAPTCHAs, blank pages, timeouts, failed loads and cache hits are not billed, and the response identifies the result with X-Page-Verdict and X-Billed headers.

One request is enough:

curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://stripe.com -o shot.webp

See the ScreenshotNeo documentation for options such as full-page capture with lazy images loaded, CSS-selector element capture, dark mode, 12 device presets or a custom viewport, retina scale, PDF paper size and page ranges, custom CSS and JavaScript, clicks before capture, selector hiding, selector/delay/network-idle waits, request blocking, headers, cookies, user agents, authorization, timezone, geolocation, transparent backgrounds, resizing, chosen cache TTLs, signed image links, asynchronous jobs with signed webhooks, bulk capture of up to 100 URLs per call, usage data and the OpenAPI specification. Parameter names used by other screenshot APIs also work, which can simplify migration.

Python

import requests

r = requests.get(
    "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot",
    params={"access_key": "YOUR_API_KEY", "url": "https://stripe.com"},
    timeout=90,
)
r.raise_for_status()
open("shot.webp", "wb").write(r.content)

Node.js

const q = new URLSearchParams({ access_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY', url: 'https://stripe.com' });
const res = await fetch(`https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot?${q}`);
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`Screenshot failed: ${res.status}`);
const fs = await import('node:fs/promises');
await fs.writeFile('shot.webp', Buffer.from(await res.arrayBuffer()));

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FAQ

Does html2canvas still support Internet Explorer?

Current getting-started documentation lists Chrome/Chromium, Firefox and Safari as supported evergreen browsers and omits Internet Explorer. An older FAQ says IE9+, but that is a historical compatibility claim and should not be treated as current support for every release or document mode.

Could line-height or letter-spacing cause the overlap?

They can change text measurements and line placement, so they are sensible diagnostic variables. The correct value depends on the font, element width, browser mode and html2canvas version; test them in a minimal reproduction rather than applying a universal value.

How do I change styles only in the html2canvas clone?

Pass an onclone callback in the capture options, select the cloned element through the callback’s document argument, and modify only that clone. The live page remains unchanged.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I treat an IE9+ FAQ entry as a compatibility guarantee?

No. It is an older statement and does not establish support for current html2canvas builds, IE document modes or your CSS.

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Is the historical 8,192-pixel limit an explanation for overlapping letters?

No confirmed source links that limit to glyph overlap. It is relevant to blank or clipped oversized canvases, which are a separate symptom.

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