The Readability extension does a simple thing I need literally every day, i.e., it makes single posts superbly more readable and printable. It is that simple. For any article on the Web I have a serious interest in reading, rather than just scanning, then I want what Readability does for me: With one click, I have the article stripped of all that is extraneous, set typographically for ease of reading with an optimal font family, font size, content width and comfortable leading, and I can also print it out should that suit me.

To see how well this works, take a raw gander at this article today by Gail Collins and David Brooks of the New York Times: Where Did All the Angry Voters Go? Sure, it’s readable enough. If you are OK with the altogether small font and old school newspaper-y column width, not to mention all the other clutter and advertisements on the page. Then install the Readability add-on and view the same page again. As my ophthalmologist always asks me, “Better one or better two?”

But wait, there are even more options! Try The Printliminator bookmarklet, available at the extraordinary CSS-Tricks. I don’t think you can beat the overall ease of use one gets from the Readability add-on, but The Printliminator gives you a further edge: You can first view the article via Readability, and then trigger The Printliminator to remove all the images or photos in the article, to strip everything down even further. Again, “Better one (using Readability) or better two (using Readability + The Printliminator)?”

You decide.

Other posts of possible interest...

• Underlined links: Does real-world usability trump the canonical view?
• Rebuild 08: Project content and CSS3 transition examples
• Readability: The Bookmarklet