How to read any article in clean reader view

Reader view strips a web page down to its text and main images. Menus, sidebars, pop-ups and autoplaying videos disappear, and you get a single column of type in a size and font you choose. Every major browser has one built in, and it’s often the simplest way to make a long article easier to read.

What reader view does, and what it doesn’t

Reader view takes the content that has already loaded on the page and lays it out again. It doesn’t fetch anything new, and it doesn’t change what the site sends you. If part of an article isn’t on the page, reader view can’t show it.

It works best on pages that look like articles: a headline, paragraphs and a few images. Home pages, search results, forums and web apps usually don’t qualify, and the browser simply won’t offer the option there.

Safari on Mac

Open an article in Safari.
Click the Page menu button in the address field, then choose Show Reader. The option only appears when Safari detects an article.
To change the look, click the Reader button at the left end of the address field and pick a background, font or text size. Safari remembers your choices.

Press Esc to leave Reader. Apple’s guide: Hide distractions when reading articles in Safari on Mac.

Safari on iPhone and iPad

Open the article in Safari.
Tap the page menu button in the address bar, then tap Show Reader.
Use the same menu to change the text size or font, or to hide Reader again.

Apple’s guide: Hide distractions when reading articles in Safari on iPhone.

Chrome

Chrome’s reading mode opens in a side panel next to the page.

Open an article.
Right-click the page and choose Open in reading mode. You can also use the reading mode icon in the address bar, or the menu: More tools > Reading mode.
The keyboard shortcut is Command + Option + R on Mac, and Alt + Shift + R on Windows, Linux and ChromeOS.

Google notes that reading mode doesn’t work on every site, particularly video sites, forums, forms and login pages. Google’s guide: Use reading mode in Chrome.

Firefox

When Firefox detects an article, a Reader View icon (a small page) appears in the address bar. Click it to switch, and click it again to go back. The toolbar on the left lets you change the font, text size, width and colours, and Firefox can read the article aloud. Mozilla’s guide: Firefox Reader View for clutter-free web pages.

Microsoft Edge

Select Enter Immersive Reader in the address bar, or press F9. If the icon isn’t there, select some text on the page, right-click and choose Open in Immersive Reader. Its toolbar includes text preferences, Read Aloud and line focus, which highlights one, three or five lines at a time. Microsoft’s guide: Use Immersive Reader and reading mode in Microsoft Edge.

When the browser doesn’t offer reader view

Sometimes a page won’t switch, usually because its layout doesn’t look enough like an article to the browser. A few things to try:

Wait for the page to finish loading. Some articles load their text a moment after the rest of the page.
Open an archived copy instead. Archived pages are often simpler, and reader view frequently works on them when it doesn’t on the original. How to view the archived version of a page shows how to open one.
Use a reader service. smry.ai tries to extract the article text on its own servers and shows it in a clean layout. When it can’t get the full text, it shows an AI-written summary instead, so check which one you’re looking at. You can open a link in smry.ai from byepaywall with one click.

Make reader view your default

Most browsers can open reader view automatically on sites you visit often:

Safari on iPhone and iPad: on the site, open the page menu, tap Website Settings and turn on Use Reader Automatically.
Safari on Mac: go to Safari > Settings > Websites > Reader and choose which sites open in Reader.
Firefox and Chrome: there’s no built-in “always on” setting, but the keyboard shortcuts above make switching quick.

Keep the benefits without losing the site

Reader view hides a lot, including things you may want: comment sections, related reading and the publisher’s own design. If you read one site regularly in reader view because its pages feel cluttered, that’s useful feedback for them, and a subscription often comes with a cleaner reading experience.

For more ways to make reading on the web calmer, from notifications to reading lists, see a simple guide to reading the web with fewer distractions. And if you’d like to know more about why byepaywall exists, read about us.