One of the benefits of an e-reader is being able to read while outside a WIFI Area. In many cases, there are a number of devices that do not even have internet functionality. Whether you are traveling on an airplane or just at the beach, sometimes you want to keep abreast of the latest tech news or other website content. Today we are going to look at a number of plugins for your web browser or other programs that will save online content.
Instapaper – This problem is available for PC, MAC, iOS, Android, and a myriad of other platforms. Registering with the PC service only involves choosing a login name and password, no other information is needed. This software basically prompts you enter a slew of links to websites such as https://goodereader.com/blog/ and imports our entire website into Kindle friendly format or ePub. Once these ebooks are saved on your PC, you can load them onto your device via Windows Explorer or Calibre.
Some cool options that this gives is being able to save an entire website to text and then change the font, font size, margins, and more. Once you got it looking the way you want, you can save it as an ebook. The mobile apps for iOS and Android both cost money, so bear it in mind.
Grabmybooks – This Firefox Plugin is one of the premier tools that allows you to surf the internet and convert text into an ebook form. You can highlight specific passages or grab entire RSS Feeds. Once you save a bunch of stuff you can visit some of the advanced tools that let you add cover art, increase the size of text, and then export them. The ebook formats work with all of Amazon’s e-Readers and any other device that supports EPUB.
This is a fairly solid tool because it allows a ton of versatility in the physical conversion process. Instapaper merely converts a ton of feeds to ebook formats, but this tool allows you to really customize the look and feel of the content you grab and save to book form. Find out more about the details HERE.
Send to Kindle – This program is available via different plugins for your internet browser and a standalone program for your PC or MAC. The plugin is supported by Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. The essence of this program is to provide you with the ability to read web content on your devices. It’s designed to offer a quick way for pushing web content to Kindle, so you can read articles or news later on your device.
Send to Kindle for PC is a free application that lets you easily send your personal documents to your Kindle and supported Kindle reading applications from your personal computer. Using Send to Kindle for PC, you can also store your personal documents in your Kindle Library and download them conveniently to your Kindle device and supported Kindle reading applications when connected wirelessly. Not only can you send personal documents, but you can also send over pictures, Doc’s, and PDF’s. It is all done via Whispersync, so it’s easy as pie. Using the browser extension allows you to click or highlight text and then click on the Send to Kindle function.
Readlist by Readability – Readlists is a new online program made by Readability that allows you to do some amazing things with blog posts. You can now easily convert a number of your favorite blogs into an offline ebook that can be read on the Kindle and many other e-readers. The new Readlists program gives you the unique ability to gather your favorite blog posts and save them on your e-reader. One of the more innovative features is that you can share the book you made with your friends or the general internet. When you are finished adding blog posts, you can use the “Send to Kindle” feature or send it directly to your iOS device. If you don’t have any of these you can download it in EPUB format and manually copy it to your e-reader.
Dotepub – Is a new entrant to the market and functions primarily as a browser extension. The program allows you to convert online content into the EPUB or MOBI format for viewing on iPads, eReaders, the Kindle, and more. Students can create “libraries” of pages that they find related to their research. Teachers can create “libraries” of bookmarks, pathfinders, and blog posts that they find interesting or useful and more. What is great about these libraries is that they are saved. Unlike a website or blog, the content will not be changing and the page will not be updated, so the information will be easily accessed at any time and will not require an online connection to be viewed.
Basically, to use the program you have to install the plugin for your browser. Then, visit the webpage that you want to save and press the dotEPUB bookmark in your browser toolbar. The dotEPUB plugin can be installed on Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Google Chrome. It allows you to keep pictures or not, which is a useful feature since this is good for pure text.
Did we miss your favorite plugin, have something to recommend? Comment below!
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
