Cut through the crap.
Read the page.
Quill Reader strips away the menus, adverts, popups, sidebars, social buttons and other distractions that sometimes make reading a webpage harder than it needs to be.
Sometimes there's a good article hiding inside a terrible webpage.
Quill Reader attempts to identify the main body of readable content, removes the surrounding clutter, and presents what remains in a comfortable reading layout.
An interesting article
An interesting article
This is the bit you actually came here to read.
The menus are gone. The advert demanding your attention is gone. The newsletter popup is gone.
Just the words, headings and useful structure remain.
No proxy. No copy. No funny business.
Open a page
Browse normally and open the article or page you want to read.
Run Quill Reader
Click your Quill Reader bookmark. It analyses the page already loaded in your browser.
Read
Quill Reader keeps the likely main content and rebuilds the page into a simpler reading view.
One tiny bookmark.
Quill Reader is installed as a bookmarklet: a bookmark that runs a small piece of JavaScript on the page you are currently viewing.
Desktop — drag and drop
Make sure your bookmarks or favourites bar is visible, then drag this button onto it:
Desktop — manual installation
- Create a new bookmark.
- Name it Quill Reader.
- Copy the bookmarklet code below.
- Paste it into the bookmark's URL or address field.
Prefer a helping hand?
Bookmarklets can be slightly odd things to install if you've never used one before.
You can also use the Webitor Bookmarklet Installer to help create and install bookmarklets.
Open Bookmarklet InstallerDoes it work everywhere?
Quite a lot of places, yes.
Quill Reader runs inside your browser against the page you already have open. Some websites use strict browser security policies that prevent external JavaScript files from being added to their pages.
On those sites, some versions or installation methods of Quill Reader may be prevented from running. This is a security feature of the website and Quill Reader deliberately does not try to circumvent it.
Future versions will aim to provide a more self-contained fallback for these situations.
Your reading stays your reading.
Quill Reader is a page-cleaning tool, not a browsing service.
The website you are viewing is not sent through a Quill Reader proxy.
Quill Reader does not need to store the article you are reading.
It works by modifying the page already loaded in your browser.
Refresh the original page and the website returns to normal.
Born from irritation.
Quill Reader started because Alex was trying to read something interesting on the web and the website hosting it seemed considerably more interested in showing everything except the thing he wanted to read.
Rather than abandon the article, the obvious response was to create a button capable of telling the rest of the page to politely disappear.
Thus, Quill Reader.
Initial reader
Article detection, page cleanup, distraction removal, simplified typography and adjustable text size.
Hosted release
Quill Reader moved to a hosted JavaScript file so improvements and fixes could be delivered without requiring users to reinstall the bookmarklet.
Public first release
A simple installable version with its own home at Readinator.
Where the Quill may wander next.
Sensible questions.
Does Quill Reader change the original website?
No. It only changes the copy of the page currently displayed in your browser. Refreshing the page reloads the original site.
Does Quill Reader bypass paywalls?
No. Quill Reader is designed to simplify content that your browser has already legitimately loaded. It is not intended to bypass access controls, subscriptions or website security.
Why does it sometimes remove something useful?
Websites are built in thousands of different ways. Quill Reader makes an educated guess about which part of the page contains the main readable content. Sometimes it may guess incorrectly.
Why doesn't it work on every website?
Some websites use strict Content Security Policies that prevent external JavaScript from being loaded into the page. Quill Reader respects these browser security controls.
Does Quill Reader stay up to date?
The standard bookmarklet loads the current hosted release of Quill Reader. This means fixes and improvements can normally be made without requiring you to reinstall the bookmark.