The reMarkable function Read on reMarkable allows users to quickly grab web content and send it to their device for future reading. This can be a great way to timebox casual web reading or to save references for research.
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Why should you trust this review?
I’ve been using the reMarkable 2 as a key part of my organization system for 3+ years and am constantly looking for ways to improve my system.
What is the Read on reMarkable function?
Read on reMarkable is a tool to grab web content, package it, and add it to your reMarkable Connect for later consumption. It uses an extension on the Chrome web browser to capture the text on a web page and then send it to your Connect subscription.
When you sync your reMarkable on WiFi, the content that you captured through Read on reMarkable will be packaged into individual documents.
When is Read on reMarkable valuable?
Decrease distraction: If you read alot of blogs or news websites, they can turn into a huge time suck and distraction. You can use Read on reMarkable to grab content you come across and read it during a defined time. The book “Indistractible: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life” by Nir Eyal recommends time boxing casual internet reading by consolidating the content you want to read and Read on reMarkable can help with this positive habit. Bonus: it’s lack of blue light can be good for increasing your recovery if you’re reading before bed.
Enable research: conducting internet research for a paper, for work, or maybe your blog can mean consolidating documents in a one spot. Using read on reMarkable can make it easy to save copies of key documents to reference later. Also, the ability to highlight and markup documents makes this a great way to take notes as you read.
Downloading cooking recipes: most recipes on the internet are loaded with ads and distractions. Plus, most phones only stay unlocked for a minute or two. Pulling recipes from the internet to your reMarkable could prove to be a create shortcut.
Who do I setup my browser and tablet for Read on reMarkable?
Setup Read on reMarkable function
Step 1 – First you need a reMarkable 2. If you don’t have one, then get to ordering one! But if you’ve already got a reMarkable, then head to the next step.
reMarkable 2 Paper tablet
EMR tablet that feels like writing on paper, but with the ability to carry around hundreds of notebooks at the same time
- Minimalist design to decrease distraction
- WiFi sync to backup notebooks
- Read and markup PDFs and EPUBs
- Optional Keyboard for distraction free typing
Step 2 – Activate your Connect Subscription. You’ll need reMarkable connect (their monthly subscription to sync your tablet with the cloud) to use Read with reMarkable
Step 3 – Install Read on reMarkable Extension. This is the final step to setting up the functionality. Open your Chrome browser and navigate to to the Chrome Extension Store. Then search for Read on reMarkable (or just use this link).
Once you’ve selected the extension (don’t worry, it’s free), you can install it in your browser. From there, it will request to link to your Connect account.
The Extension will open a new browser tab so that you can log into Connect and grab a one-time passcode for the connection. Once you’ve entered the connection passcode, you should be all set!
Use Read on reMarkable to read web content
Step 1 – find content
Find interesting content to read. Other than the EffectivExec, I’d highly recommend TheWarZone and Farnam Street. For the purpose of this guide (and to stay compliant with copy right laws), I’ve selected our recent article on using your HSA funds to pay for your Whoop 4.0 subscription.
Step 2 – navigate to the web page you want to read
Step 3 – click on Read on reMarkable Icon
Click the “Read on reMarkable” icon (at the top right of your browser) and the content will be sent to your reMarkable Connect account.
Step 4 – Sync your reMarkable
Sync your reMarkable 2 to pull down the saved content. If you need assistance with connecting your device to WiFi, check out this article.
Step 5 – Navigate to reMarkable Home Screen
Navigate to the home screen of your reMarkable 2 and your pieces of “Read on reMarkable” content should be there as seperate documents.
Step 6 – read on reMarkable
Start reading your articles. Like any PDF, you can take notes on these or highlight them.
Step 7 (optional) – clean up the documents. One shortcoming of the Read on reMarkable functionality is that it saves all of the documents to your home screen. I recommend either deleting content you don’t want any more or at least filing them into folders to keep your device organized.
PRO TIP: use creative tags to make interesting or commonly referenced documents easier to find. You could even create a RoR tag for “Read on reMarkable.”
How well does the Read on reMarkable function work?
Read on reMarkable does the advertised task of packaging and saving webcontent so that you can read it or refer to it later.
On rather simple or straight forward web pages, it does a great job of grabbing the text content and formatting it in an easy to read manner. When webpages get more complex or have tons of multimedia features, the Read On version may not be as easily consumed.
It’s also important to note that the Read on reMarkable function does not capture images or movies (duh) from web pages. This is great in that it keeps the file sizes down, but you can obviously lose key parts of an article.
What are alternatives to Read on reMarkable?
Copy and paste web content into Word docs and then export to PDFs
One reliable, but painful workflow to capture content from the web is to copy, paste, and then export to PDF. This can be done through Microsoft Office Word. In a nut shell, you can copy web content into a Word document (.docx) to capture it from the web. You’ll likely need to do some format clean up as most websites don’t paste cleanly.
Once you have the information in a Word doc, you can export it to PDF and then send that PDF to your reMarkable in a process similar to how we recommend syncing Powerpoint presentations to your reMarkable.
This method is clearly not great for saving time but does work reliably to save content for future reading to your device.
Use the rePub extension (not official reMarkable extension)
The rePub tool is an externally developed application for capturing and syncing reMarkable content to your device. Since it was externally developed and reMarkable does not have an app store, it is not officially endorsed by the reMarkable company.
Two major advantages of this tool is that (1) it captures images as it generates ePUBs and (2) it does not require a Connect subscription. Learn more about it on the rePub Github page.
