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WikiReader – bookmarklet for Wikipedia reading

Thursday, February 04, 2010 { 2 Comments }

Probably there is no day that I don’t consult Wikipedia site. I think that we all frequently visit Wikipedia site and enjoy reading its content.

I wanted to create Kindle like reading experience for Wikipedia reading directly from your browser.
There are already two great bookmarklets who are doing great job at this Readability and Readable. The problem is they are optimized for every site not for Wikipedia.

So I liked to build Wikipedia only reader.

Here is an example.

Wikipedia before:


After:


How I did the bookmarklet?


I took Wikipedia CSS file for web printing and I made some changes and then I used this tool to make the bookmarklet . Pretty easy :)

What I changed inside print CSS style?

Bigger font. Black for the text. Gray for the links. Serif. Georgia. Bigger leading.

With few words Big Georgia font probably means super readable text.

I don’t want to bother with my design decision or typography decision if you want to find more about opinion about web typography browse these articles:

Serif vs. sans-serif legibility
How we read on web and how can we improve that
Azbuka - CSS Typographical Base Rendering Library

>> DOWNLOAD WikiReader bookmarklet <<

(Works in Firefox and Chrome in Safari 4.04 brakes for some reason does not work for IE)

How to use the bookmarklet? It is super easy after you Drag & Drop the link to your browser bookmark toolbar go to some Wikipedia article and click the button(bookmark).

If you still don't know what is bookmarklet and how they work here is Wikipedia article about bookmarklets.

Enjoy your Wikipedia reading.

2 Responses to “WikiReader – bookmarklet for Wikipedia reading”

1. //  Anonymous // 2/04/2010

   wow!! very usefull, tnx!!!  

2. //  Anonymous // 8/13/2012

   Hey, just wanted to leave a note thanking you. I use wikipedia everyday and I like the way your bookmarklet eliminates a lot of the noise. Thanks!  

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