Browsing web pages on a Kindle Fire or Kindle Touch or Kindle Keyboard e-readerRecently, a family member recently told me he was frustrated by trying to read webpages with tiny fonts, and I saw a Kindle news blog saying not much had been done to improve the Kindle Fire.
I replied that the new Kindle Fire feature, Reading View for web-article reading that isolates the article, is done VERY well, and it’s brought me back to Amazon's Silk browser from Dolphin HD (Android) web browers which I had far preferred until Amazon’s Reading View feature was added to its Silk browser.
The new feature makes a huge difference for most who use the web browser on a 7" tablet if they know about it (and that’s the key, or at least one of them). For those who don’t know about the "Reading View" feature, look for the reading glasses icon in the bottom status bar when at a web page article.
Lightly press the eyeglasses icon and you'll get a specially formatted page for the web article you're on, far more readable with no ads or surrounding link and info boxes.
I really enjoy this new feature despite the fact that in normal web-browsing on the Kindle Fire, a double tap on an article will usually raise the font size considerably and wrap the web article text within the width of the Kindle Fire, depending on your web settings and it's usually at a good size.
But the instant Reading View is much easier and very effective. No other eReader-based Android tablet web-browser or non-Kindle e-Ink eReader [I edited to correct the subject device type here] has this for browsing the web in full desktop mode (not limited mobile mode). It’s like Instapaper or Readability, getting rid of ads and side boxes while displaying just the article in normal-sized text and supporting any article links. But you also have access to the normal full webpage.
And ANOTHER way to do this (on the Kindle Fire):
Resize the column you want to read and then pinch zoom the display to enlarge the words until you have only what you want in the window (no side boxes or ads).
Then double-tap, and that will keep the font size you are seeing while wrapping the rest of the article to the width of the window.
My web browser settings are something like "auto-overview" and zoom in='Close'...
Remember that if you rotate the Kindle Fire 90 degrees, web browsing will be like reading on a 10" screen but only a half page at a time and the text on the page is easiest to read this way, with more room for it. I do most of my web-browsing in landscape mode.
The Kindle Touch ALSO has the pinch-zoom feature to enlarge the displayed text to the font size you want but it's hard to control the width of that as it doesn't wrap at the width so I don't consider it worthwhile except to raise the font size in an area you want to read, knowing it won't wrap.
The Kindle Touch and Kindle Keyboard e-Ink readers offer ARTICLE Mode, which converts the layout of the web article you're reading to a simple isolated article-view with very readable text. When finished with the article, press Menu--Web Mode to return to normal web browsing.
The Kindle Touch otherwise allows, in normal web-browsing, only two auto-sizes -- the normal tiny, unreadable font when you're on a full webpage and a MEDIUM sized font if you double-tap the screen in the article box. This isn't large enough for most though. If you double tap it again, it reverts to smallest font and the double-tap acts as a toggle between the two sizes.
(An oddness: If you double-click on an info box on the right, the Kindle Touch will sometimes raise the article font to a large size and then show you the article that way, but it's not worth doing because the KTouch gets confused and can crash the browser.)
Hope that helps. I find that although I've written about this a couple of times, most people don't seem to know about the enhanced web-text reading features.
| US: Kindle Fire 7" tablet - $199 Kindle NoTouch ("Kindle") - $79/$109 Kindle Touch, WiFi - $99/$139 Kindle Touch, 3G/WiFi - $149/$189 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189, Free, slow web Kindle DX - $379, Free, slow web | UK: Kindle Basic, NoTouch - £89 Kindle Touch WiFi, UK - £109 Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi, UK - £169 Kindle Keyboard 3G, UK - £149 Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB | OTHER International Kindle NoTouch Basic - $109 Kindle Touch WiFi - $139 Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi - $189 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189 Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB |
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