Experience distraction-free reading with Chrome’s new Reading Mode, coming soon

While Chrome’s Reading Mode has been available (though busted) in Chrome Canary for over a year, it was only recently fully implemented and announced at the BETT conference – a showcase for educational technology and innovation. Google also demonstrated several new tools for Classroom and Workspace for students and educators, which are all cool in their own right, but this tool is what I’m really excited about.

Reading Mode opens any web page or article in the new Side Panel of the browser and strips out graphics, videos, ads, and more to give you a simplified and focused reading experience. You can change the typeface, font size, background color, and more, allowing you to customize the reading experience to your liking.

The Keyword

I’ve been using this tool to save articles to my Reading List from my phone and then open them in Reading Mode on my desktop. I recommend everyone try this out, honestly. My only qualm is that I wish you could make the Reading Mode take over the full screen instead of reading entirely on the right side in a sliver of the display space.

Luckily, the Side Panel can now be resized, so this is not really as big an issue as it would have been if this feature launched last year. Simply drag the handle at the edge of the panel all the way to the left and you can fill most of your display with the Reading Mode article for easy reading!

I’m not seeing the tool roll out on Desktop Chrome or on my Chromebook in the Stable channel yet, and Google has yet to reveal a release date, but keep checking for it, and we’ll let you know if it becomes widely available! Let me know in the comments if you’ll use this or if you prefer to read the article you’re looking at in the full context with images, videos, and more.