Readability

Readability How to Use Guide Image

Congratulations! Readability installed successfully. Other than installing the extension, you don’t need anything more to use the add-on.


To use it just click the R icon on Firefox statusbar. Also by right clicking on R icon you can get other Styling Options.

Yo can also add a Toolbar button to the navigation toolbox. Right click on any toolbar button and choose the “Customise” option to drag the icon in toolbox.

The keyboard shortcut to activate Readability is CTRL+ALT+R combination. To return to original page use CTRL+R combination.

Mac users: please use Command+Option+R combination to activate Readability. To return to original page use Command+R combination.


Readability contains Autoscroll functionality, too.

As the name suggests Autoscroll functionality will let you scroll the pages automatically without using your mouse or keyboard. After you activate the Readability and simplify the page, just press CTRL + SHIFT + A keyboard combination to start using the Autoscroll.

Usage:

0-9 : Set scroll speed, 0 being stand-still and 9 being skim-speed
– : Decrease speed
= : Increase speed
shift + – : Decrease speed quickly
shift + = : Increase speed quickly
ESC or q : Quit

Autoscroll does not require activating Readability. It simply works on any long web page you come up with. But combined with Readability it just improves the idea.





If you find the application useful please support my development efforts.


49 Responses to “Readability”
  1. Baris Derin says:

    Hi Mistral,

    It is actually the site problematic.

    Howard,

    I will consider them for the next versions.

  2. LarryG says:

    RT SeattleRay (January 5, 2010)
    For NYTimes articles, just click “single page” on the NYT webpage.

  3. Rohan says:

    Love this tool.. it is something i have been looking for. I really like reading with a dark background.

    Hey did someone think of this – when you read with black ink on white, you are actually reading what you don’t see. White color is reflected – black just absorbs all light! Thanks again

  4. Rohan says:

    Just one thing – the posts is a problem. On this page itself, if i turn readability on, the posts disappear. Anything that can show them?

  5. Baris Derin says:

    Hello Rohan,

    Readability works at %95 success rate. And it is especially designed for content not the comments.

  6. Claire says:

    I love this! I accidentally erased it when cleaning up my system and then realized how much I rely on it. You could also call it “printability” because it allows one to print content without the “nonsense.” Thanks.

  7. Jim says:

    It appears this app works nicely with Auto Pager addon. I simply scrolled down a NYT article until autopager loaded the second page, and Readibility picked up the whole story. I haven’t tried it on other sites yet. (I think you can even configure autopager to load immediately.)

  8. Mandx says:

    It’s a nice add-on! But there are some glitches…

    Look at my own site: The headings are styled with Cufón, a technique that allows to render any font with Javascript, and uses canvas elements to draw the custom font. When simplified with Readability, the canvas elements are still there, spacing every word. Readability should detect Cufón usage (canvas tags are inside a cufon tag) and remove them.

    The other problem is with code presentation, as seen in my blog. Readability should support (at least) some code stylizers… But this is a big one, eh?

  9. Rajesh Agarwal says:

    Hi! How do you activate autoscroll for Macs?

  10. Baris Derin says:

    Hi Rajesh,

    Have you tried Command+Shift+A combination?

  11. Jim says:

    Another request for compatibility with NoScript (I’ve currently got 1.9.9.81 installed on Firefox 3.6.3) – however the Readability Firefox addon works, it seems to present itself as code from the website you are visiting rather than as code from a discrete domain e.g. from arc90.com.

    Also, choice of font would be great e.g. Sans Serif etc.

    Thanks :)

  12. showfox says:

    Great job!With this addon I can always focus on the content now.It’s a great experience to browse like reading newspaper.Thanks!

  13. Iren says:

    First of all, great add-on, thank you! I have one question, is it meant to be that arrow keys and page up/page down don’t work? It’s kinda frustrating. I try to use Readability with Google Reader and those keys do nothing. Do you plan to add this functionality in the future?

  14. Baris Derin says:

    Hi Iren,

    Thanks for the bug report. Readability does not prevent keyboard key usage. Probably there is a conflict that belongs to Google Reader.

  15. gicque says:

    i have to enable javascript for the websites before using readability, i understand that for the bookmarklet, but why do i have to do that for the (firefox) extension ? oh i almost forgot thanx a lot for for the extension (:

  16. mgc says:

    It would be really nice to have the black background with a white font. I think that is what makes reader in Safari attractive.

  17. jhuesos says:

    Great extension, but I think Safari’s mode is more advance since it detects multipage articles and show them all in the same page.

    It should be a must have feature! I hope you can add that option in the future.

    Thanks,

  18. David says:

    Is it possible to set a default scroll speed? Or have it remember your previous speed?

  19. Anna says:

    Thank you for creating Readability, it’s WONDERFUL!

  20. Henry says:

    I like this extension, but it doesn’t work very well on all sites. In particular, it doesn’t work on Salon.com. Something about the way they format their articles, clicking on Readability will display a different article in the same section or cut off the top of the article you’re trying to read.