The Firefox version has the same functionality that the Chrome extension offers. An icon is added to the Firefox navigational toolbar upon installation and restart. Users who do not use the toolbar can right-click on it and select customize to move the icon to another toolbar.

A click on the Clearly icon turns standard web pages into pages that have been optimized for readability. Only text, images and videos that belong to the content on the web page are displayed, the remaining elements, advertisements or menus, are removed. Clearly in addition attempts to display multi-paged articles on the same page.

Evernote Clearly furthermore changes text and layout styles. The add-on uses a larger base font size, line height and width, a light gray background, black text and blue link colors for better readability.

Styles can be edited in the add-on options, just like it was possible in Google Chrome. Here it is then possible to change all values that have been mentioned above, plus the body, header and monospace font, as well as advanced CSS commands. This includes adding custom CSS styles and how links and large graphics should be handled by the Firefox add-on.

A click on the icon displays the optimized version in the same browser tab. Icons on the right can be used to change the default page style and font size, to print the optimized page or to clip it to Evernote (which requires an Evernote account).

A keyboard shortcut is available to open pages with the help of Clearly directly. This can be useful for users who do not want to use the icon or prefer keyboard navigation. The default shortcut is Ctrl-Alt-Right Arrow, it can be changed in the options.

Evernote Clearly is a useful extension for Firefox users who want to improve a page’s readability or print a printer friendly version of a page.

Evernote Clearly is a new Chrome extension by the makers of Evernote. The extension basically reduces web pages to their textual contents. It is in this regard comparable to other tools, like Readable, TidyRead, Paragrasp or Readability that I have reviewed in the past.

Evernote Clearly adds an icon to Chrome’s address bar. Whenever you click on the icon the current web page is converted into a text only version that is very pleasing to the eye. The extension keeps the page title, text, images that belong to the article and links. It may add other elements at the end that do not necessarily belong to the article but are not distracting as they are displayed below the article.

Here is a screenshot of how the latest Ghacks article looks after it has been processed by Clearly.

The extension will also turn multi-paged articles into a single page. You can easily switch back to the original article at any time by clicking on the back icon in the small tool bar on the right. A click on a link leaves the Clearly interface as well and returns the target web page unaltered.

Clearly comes with three themes that can be activated with a click on the Aa button in the interface. The default theme displays black text on a gray page. The other two themes display black text on a white page or gray text on a black page.

It is furthermore possible to change the font size from medium to small or large.

The toolbar links to printing options to create a print out of the selected page.

Evernote users can link Clearly to their account which gives them the option to add clippings to Evernote. An option to create a custom theme is also available in the extension’s options. Here it is possible to change font types and colors as well as ling heights and widths. Experienced users can add custom CSS and make further modifications to the custom theme.

The extension works very well. I tried it on sites like Ghacks, Lifehacker, ZDnet or the Wall Street Journal. It did not work well on some sites though, including PC Magazine with its dreaded slideshows.

According to the introductory blog post over at the Evernote Blog, Evernote Clearly will available for other web browsers soon.

Google Chrome users can download Evernote Clearly from the official Chrome Web Store. (via)

The Firefox add-on Readable, a direct port of the bookmarklet Readable, falls into the same category of tools such as TidyRead, Paragrasp or Readability for the Firefox web browser. The basic principle is always the same. The script removes elements on the screen that are not necessary to access the core information posted on the website. Some do that automatically with barely any configuration options, others like Readable offer an impressive collection of options to create a custom solution best suited for each individual usage scenario.

The Firefox extension places an icon in the Firefox status bar that triggers the action. A click on the icon extracts the main text from the page and overlays a bare-bones version of it on the screen.

The main text, links and images are included in the new version, everything else is removed automatically.

A right-click on the icon opens the configuration menu with options to change the font type and size, the width of the overlay box, the inner margin and the color theme.

It can happen that the add-on is not able to extract the information properly. You can then highlight the information that you want to read first before you click on the icon in the status bar. The add-on will then process only the highlighted parts of the website and ignore all other web elements.

The bookmarklet offers the same functionality. Well, that’s not entire true as it lists more configuration options than the Firefox extension.

Among the additional options are the inclusion of video contents, transparency settings, text line height and image alignment.

So what should you use: The Firefox add-on or the bookmarklet? The bookmarklet offers several advantages, mainly better configuration options, the fact that it is not loaded into memory during browser start and that is is compatible with other web browsers as well. The small downside of the bookmarklet is that its configuration page is not that easily accessible.

Interested users can download the Readable bookmarklet from the official website, and the Readable add-on from the Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.

The Firefox add-on Print Edit integrates seamlessly into the print preview page of the web browser, by adding an Edit button to the page’s header.

A click on the button displays the page of the website again, but this time with selectable elements. Here it is then possible to select elements to edit, hide, format or delete them.

This makes it for instance possible to delete advertisements, images, sidebars and other elements that are not necessary for the print out.

print edit

The add-on offers three basic editing options. The delete button removes the selected element from the web page. Hide on the other hand hides the selected elements. The difference between hide and delete is that hide does not affect the position of other elements on the page, while delete does.

Eight different formatting properties can be applied with the format command. These elements can be selected in the drop down menu next to the format button.

There are also comfortable options to select elements on the page. It is for instance possible to delete all elements at once except the selected ones.

Print Edit can save a lot of money, especially for users who print out a lot of websites and pages. Users who only want to print out text can take a look at readability extensions instead, which are easier and faster to use.

Readability was initially offered as a bookmarklet compatible with most web browsers. The Firefox add-on of the same name is limited to the Firefox web browser. It provides access to five different styles that can be applied to any website that is open in the browser.

Selecting one of the styles turns the original website into a compressed one that is displaying only the main content which usually is the text that is provided on those pages.

Readability places an icon in the status bar of the web browser. It is also possible to display an icon in the toolbars where it can be accessed easier. Keyboard shortcuts are also provided which makes the process even easier. Pressing CTRL + ALT + R will turn the Readability style on while CTRL + R will return the webpage to its original design.

The extension provides access to autoscroll functionality as well which can be activated with the keyboard shortcut CTRL + Shift + A. Once activate several additional controls are available:

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

The auto scrolling functionality is unique to the Firefox add-on as it is not provided in the bookmarklet. Readability can be downloaded from the Firefox add-on repository. No Script users on the other hand will not have much fun with the add-on as it only works if the root url is whitelisted or allowed in the security add-on.

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.

Blackout is a basic Firefox add-on that adds a new icon to the Firefox address bar. This icon provides access to alternative color schemes that can be used to change the dominant colors of a website. Colors that get changed are the website’s background color, the text color and the header colors.

Seven different color schemes are available plus one custom scheme that allows the user to select a custom color scheme. The screenshot above displays one of the gray color schemes that are selectable. The only way to go back to the original color scheme of the page is to reload it. The only other option provided is the ability to make the selected color scheme the default one for all websites of the current section. Some color schemes might hide images or other elements on a page.

The custom color scheme colors can be changed in the options of the add-on. It might be useful to have a hex color wheel at hand during the configuration. Blackout is not the only option to change a color theme on the fly. Other options are the Tidyread add-on for Firefox or the Readability bookmarklet.

Readability is a bookmarklet that aids the Internet user in improving the online reading experience. We have discussed other options before like the Tidyread add-on for the Firefox web browser or Washer which turns colors into grayscale for better readability.

Readability is a little bit different as it offers some choices during the creation of the bookmarklet. The reader can select an individual style (newspaper, ebook, novel and terminal), size (small, medium, large and extra-large) and margin (narrow, medium, wide and extra-wide) to improve online reading. The bookmarklet will use the parameters that the user selects during configuration.

But Readability will not only change the text that is displayed on the website; It will also remove all the clutter – and by all we mean everything from advertisement, sidebars and comments – from the page so that only the title, images and text remains. Below is a screenshot of the original article HP Photosmart Premium All in one of Otakugadgets.com and the same article after having used the Readability bookmarklet with the ebook, medium, medium settings.

You can configure and bookmark the Readability bookmarklet (via Shellcity) to improve online reading at the developer’s website.