Reading long articles on the web can sometimes be a frustrating experience. Between flashing banner ads, auto-playing videos, and cluttered sidebars, it is easy to lose focus on the actual text. Fortunately, Google Chrome includes a built-in Reading Mode that strips away all these distractions, leaving you with a clean, easy-to-read page.
How to Enable Reading Mode
Chrome’s Reading Mode feature is tucked away inside a side panel rather than completely taking over your main tab. Here is how to access it:
- Open Google Chrome and navigate to the article you wish to read.
- Click the Side panel icon in the top right corner of the browser window (it looks like a square with the right third shaded in).
- At the top of the side panel that opens, click the dropdown menu (which usually defaults to “Bookmarks” or “Search”) and select Reading Mode.
- The side panel will instantly populate with the text of the article, completely stripped of ads and background clutter.
Customising Your Reading Experience
Once Reading Mode is active, you can customise how the text looks to suit your preferences. At the top of the Reading Mode panel, you will see a toolbar with several options:
- Font: Change the typeface (e.g., standard sans-serif to a classic serif font).
- Text Size: Increase or decrease the size of the words using the A- and A+ buttons.
- Theme: Change the background colour. You can choose a dark theme (white text on a black background), a sepia theme (for a book-like feel), or stick to the default light theme.
- Line Spacing: Adjust the amount of blank space between sentences to make the text feel less cramped.
You can also click and drag the border between the side panel and your main window to make the Reading Mode section wider and more comfortable to read.