Readability Extension [Google Chrome]

Online services, bookmarklets and extensions that have the aim of increasing a website’s readability usually alter the way the website is displayed in the web browser. This ranges from removing elements that are unnecessary for reading the text to font and color changes so that the text becomes more readable than before.

Readability Redux is a Google Chrome extension that adds a button to the Chrome address bar by default. Pressing that button on a page will turn that page into a version that is better readable by removing nearly any elements on the page but the text. But even the text is reduced as usually only the title and the main text remain on the website with every other text removed as well.

Before:After:

The extension will by default remove all other elements from the page including images, graphics and flash contents. The text is centered and the font size increased to increase the readability of the text itself. Controls to print or email the page are also provided by the extension.

A right-click on the extension’s button in the address bar of the Google browser will display a context menu with an option to change some of the preferences of the add-on. It is possible to switch the overall style of the layout from the default newspaper style to novel, book or terminal styles. The only other options that are provided define the font size of the text and the margin on the page.

Readability Redux is a straightforward extension for the Google Chrome browser that works fine on most websites. Several other options exist to increase the readability including bookmarklets like Readability which seems to have been the inspiration for this extension. The extension can be downloaded from the official Google Chrome extension gallery.

Related Articles:

Author: Martin Brinkmann, Wednesday January 20, 2010 -
Tags:google browser, google chrome, google chrome extension, readability, readability redux