It’s a long known fact among users that websites are hard to read. I will never forget the reams of paper an old boss of mine would go through printing out webpages and emails because she couldn’t focus on the screen. Web designers have been trying to change things with better typography and layouts for screens but sad to say, the purpose of a webpage isn’t always to allow the content to be read. Some websites place more weight on showing people ads than helping them read the information they came for.

One of the ways around this is to reformat the page in the browser. Safari has a tool built-in and there are services that “save” the content for you but my favorite is a bookmarklet called Readable. A bookmarklet is a piece of javascript saved to your bookmarks toolbar that runs in your browser when you click on it.

With Readable, you just set your viewing preferences, drag the bookmarklet up to the browser bookmark bar and go. On any website that you’re having a hard time reading, just click on the bookmarklet and the content is reformatted into the preferences you set while stripping out everything else like navigation and ads.

This is what the page looks like when you go to Readable.Tastefulwords.com. The arrow points to the “Show Setup” button where you get started.

Next you use the pull-down menu to select what colors and fonts you want to use. in the top middle of the page, you can also select predefined themes to use instead and see what the results will be below in the “Preview” pane.

Once you have something you like, grab the box that says “Readable” and drag it up to your bookmark bar. When you find a webpage too busy to read, just click on the link and enjoy. Click on the “Close” box in the top right corner if you want to go back to the regular page. If you find you don’t like the settings as well as you thought you would, you can always delete the bookmarklet and start over.