Hello! And welcome to another tutorial!
Despite enjoying other browsers like Firefox Developer Edition or Vivaldi, I can’t deny that I keep going back to Google Chrome. A few weeks ago, I used Chrome for the first time in a while, and I noticed that the Read mode (or distraction free- mode) wasn’t available anywhere. This mattered a lot to me, since I use this feature when I have a lot of reading to do or don’t want to be bothered with flashy ads. (yes, you can right click and copy pages that don’t allow it when you are in read mode).
I ended up looking all over the internet for an easy solution. If you have read my other posts, then you’ll know that I prefer not to install additional software or extensions, this won’t be the exception.
Let’s start!
Step 1 – Go to the shortcut that launches your Google Chrome browser. It can be on your desktop, taskbar or in the Start Menu. Right click on it, and then go to Properties.
Step 2 – In the Target box, you can see the route of the Chrome application, after the quotation marks, add the following text.
--enable-dom-distiller
Step 3 – Click on Apply to save these changes and if you have any Chrome windows opened, close them.
Step 4 – Now let’s try it, open any page that you would like to see in Read Mode (I personally suggest http://www.worldstart.com), go to the Menu (top right corner of the browser) and click on Distill Page. This will leave only the “readable” content and hide all the other elements that could distract you. To go back to normal view, just click the back arrow button on the browser.
*Note: If the Distill Page button is missing after applying the changes to the shortcut, check that you have positively closed all the instances of the browser. You can go to Task Manager and check the process list to see if chrome.exe is running, if this is the case, end the process and try again.
If everything is okay, then a page that looked like this without reading mode enabled:
Now should look like this:
As you can see, the Distilled mode won’t be remembered for its beauty, but it does the work and only requires to adda few text in the shortcut target.
I hope this tip turns to be useful to you. If you have any questions, comments or feedback, please leave them all down here in the comments section!
~ Hernan
This procedure did NOT work. I received a Problem with Shortcut that said, “–enable-dom-distiller specified in the Target box is not valid”.
Just answered on Charles Connel comment! I’ll wait for your feedback!
I had the same problem as Walter had when the info was put in. Any advice?
Hi! I ran a Virtual Machine with a fresh installation of Chrome to test it again and gave me no problems. Are you sure you are pasting the text after the quotation marks?
Good this worldstart has these comment sections as reading others saved me not to bother falling to error as others this time have shown to “been there – done that” and I’ve got my fare share of download that don’t work too… Though in mentioning “a lot of reading to do” reading speed is just one thing, but you’ll want to save and ease visual energies focusing ones SO for an open separate page reading mode Worldstart does has that open page reader option 90%+ of the time in the URL bar on my S4-Phone where text can be enlarge to the text line lengths that “Word-Wrap/Trap” into the given screen width – as well as the phones flip screen option viewing landscape/portrait wrapping to text (of cause there are phones that do that to every web page more flexible via zoom finger spanning though with my phone, it’s a technology that is too behind that concept) but thus will ease (+) exercising SO THEREFORE if you can create a reading mode as the goal as you mentioned “a lot of reading to do” you will also want consideration of the font sizing GEARED TOWARDS “Word-Wrap/Trap” effect to page widths “Especially” for non-touch-screens, plus maybe even to good clear TTS that’s to function with very ranging speeds… I guess you all who read me would say I know so much about the reading experience… And yes my “WORDS” are “GOLD-MINE/MIND” of wonder and treats…
Thanks for your feedback!
Deleted text delivery via arrow keys into my message so I’m one again re-sending this message, but with optional characters this time!
Good this worldstart has these comment sections as reading others saved me not to bother falling to error as others this time have shown to “been there – done that” and I’ve got my fare share of download that don’t work too… Though in mentioning “a lot of reading to do” reading speed is just one thing, but you’ll want to save and ease visual energies focusing ones (visual-reading-span) SO for an open separate page reading mode Worldstart does has that open page reader option 90%+ of the time in the URL bar on my S4-Phone where text can be enlarge to the text line lengths that “Word-Wrap/Trap” into the given screen width – as well as the phones flip screen option viewing landscape/portrait wrapping to text (of cause there are phones that do that to every web page more flexible via zoom finger spanning though with my phone, it’s a technology that is too behind that concept) but thus will ease (+) exercising (visual-reading-span) SO THEREFORE if you can create a reading mode as the goal as you mentioned “a lot of reading to do” you will also want consideration of the font sizing GEARED TOWARDS “Word-Wrap/Trap” effect to page widths “Especially” for non-touch-screens, plus maybe even to good clear TTS that’s (FLEXIBLE) to function with very ranging speeds… I guess you all who read me would say I know so much about the reading experience… And yes my “WORDS” are “GOLD-MINE/MIND” of wonder and treats…
I received same message as above. “–enable-dom-distiller specified in the Target box is not valid. Make sure the path and file name are correct”.
The comment from hernanecalante:
“Hi! I ran a Virtual Machine with a fresh installation of Chrome to test it again and gave me no problems. Are you sure you are pasting the text after the quotation marks”? also doesn’t work for me since I have no idea what a Virtual Machine is let alone how to run it.
note that the dash is double at the beggining of the sentence, copy this exact one>
–enable-dom-distiller
I see that the site is changing the double dash for a long one, write it down manually on the path instead of copying and pasting the sentence from here.