Federal Judiciary

Readability bookmarklet

By Michael C. Smith

I recently ran across a little tool that I'm getting a lot of use out of, and I thought others might as well.  It's called Readability, and it's a bookmarklet (meaning you activate it by dragging it to your bookmarks toolbar, which essentially means you turn it into a button on your web browser's toolbar - not quite as simple as it sounds to set up, but easy as can be once set up) that reformats a web page by eliminating all the ads and other online clutter, so you get a book or newspaper style version of the website with text font and size (and formatting) you've selected.   It has only the text and photos, so you have just the information you need, in a format you're used to, and without distractions.  If you prefer the original version, you just click and you're back to the original page.  Here is a link with more information on the thing - the above link takes you straight to the setup page and shows you immediately what the thing does.

I have tried it out with my daily RSS reader reading and it works pretty well for me in letting me process my daily reading more quickly.  I don't use it on all pages - just ones where the font size or formatting or ads are preventing me from focusing on the content the way I'd like.  I have found it distinctly useful when I need to get out of light skimming mode and focus on content.  A lot of my reading is old-fashioned issue spotting - I'm reading articles and posts and case blurbs to see if there's something I'm interested, and I don't use it for that.  But when there is I slow down so I can concentrate on the content, but sometimes the formatting is a problem and I have to work harder to stay focused on the content.  This allows me to eliminate that with one click and get the page reformatted so it is in a format I am used to. 

It reminds me a bit of when I discovered (to my assistant's intense displeasure) after working on a couple of back to back Fifth Circuit appeals that I really liked reading briefing printed double-sided and spiral bound like an appellate brief (I now use Levenger Circa notebooks for this).  It's like reading a book, and I can just feel the neurons upstairs relaxing and getting ready for party time with the highlighter when I open a notebook with motion briefing presented like that.  Readability reminded me a lot of that feeling - when I find an article or post that I want to take some time to study and absorb, it puts it in a format that makes it easy for me - and, incidentally, one step closer to being printed out for the old Circa notebook...

Anyway, it works for me - hopefully a few readers will find it useful as well.

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on December 04, 2009 (boomark / email).