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readability posts

Filed under: Text, Utilities, Web services

Readability 2 makes webpages printable, pasteable and uncluttered

I've written before about the Readability bookmarklet, a handy way to make cluttered sites more easily readable (and printable). Well, TUAW blogger and talented designer Brett Terpstra has made some improvements that result in an even more minimal page. Print/email links and logos are cut out, and only essential images are included. For most sites, that means you'll be left with some nicely-formatted text, and nothing more. This new-and-improved version is aptly called Readability 2.

If you need to copy-paste an entire article without grabbing images or accidentally copying weird formatting tags, Readability 2 is just the ticket. Code and pre tags are also preserved, so Readability 2 won't destroy the formatting of code snippets on a webpage. Mr. Terpstra points out that it's also great for getting text ready to be grabbed with capture tools like Evernote.

(and yes, the image above is a screenshot of this post, after using Readability 2.)

Filed under: Productivity, Web services

If you don't like the way it looks, read it with Readable App

Readable App is a bookmarklet you can use to display text from any webpage in a more easily-readable format, according to your preferences. If that sounds familiar, it might be because you've heard of Readability, a similar service I covered on Download Squad recently. The author of Readable App knows about Readability, acknowledges he borrowed some color settings from it, and offers a list of ways his app is better. He actually makes some good points.

When you click the Readability bookmarklet, it reloads the page you're reading and styles it according to your Readability settings. Readable App, on the other hand, shows a lightbox-style overlay that you can click out of to show the original page. This is definitely more convenient, especially when you take into account that neither Readable nor Readability works properly on every page. If you hit a page it can't display well, it's faster to click out than to reload. Other than that, the choice between the two comes down to which site's selection of styles you prefer.

Filed under: Text, Productivity

Readability unclutters your online reading material


Reading articles online can be a huge pain. Some sites have no sense of type design, or just have too much clutter to give you a pleasant reading experience. Readability is at least a partial solution to the problem. It's a customizable bookmarklet for all major browsers that lets you load a site in a text-only mode to make it easier on the eyes.

Readability offers modes for everyone who reads online, whether you prefer a terminal-style light-on-dark monospace style or a newspaper-style serif. Text size is customizable and can be made extra large, which actually strikes me as an accessibility feature, and not just a convenience. You can also adjust the column width to suit your personal preferences. Readability works better on some sites than others: it's perfect on NYTimes.com, and unfortunately doesn't work at all on Download Squad.

[via Daring Fireball]

Filed under: Blogging, Web services

How readable is your web site?

Readability TestHave you ever wondered if your writing is going over your readers' heads? No, me neither. But in case you're curious like me about the readability level of your web site, Juicy Studio's Readability Test will tell you. Just enter a URL and it will give you a bunch of data about its readability including its Gunning Fog Index and Flesch-Kincaid Grade which are supposed to tell you how much schooling a person needs before they'll be able to understand what you've written. According to the readability test Download Squad's Fog Index is 7.74, or somewhere between Mark Twain and Reader's Digest.

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