El Capitan: Adjust Safari's Reader Settings

Under El Capitan, Reader view in Safari has become customizable, and I like the changes quite a bit. Not familiar with Reader? Well, when you visit sites that this Safari feature can work with, you’ll see a little icon with lines appear in the left corner of the Smart Search bar.

If you click that icon (or press Command-Shift-R, for View > Show Reader), you’ll be taken to a clutter-free version of the site, which’ll strip out things like ads. This is great for reading articles without distractions! And now, you can make this view look exactly how you want it to, as well. To do that, click on the icon on the right of the Smart Search bar when you’ve got a Reader page open. 

There you can make the text bigger or smaller (or change the font entirely) or switch up the color of the background. And when you’re finished with your article and want to exit Reader view, press Escape, use the Reader shortcut I mentioned above again, or click the “lines” icon at the top.

And hey, we’ve got this feature under iOS 9, too! It follows the same steps as above—if you see the “lines” icon appear in the search bar, tap it to switch to Reader view. Then you can use the icon on the right to adjust the settings.

Leave this view on iOS by tapping the Reader icon again.

This really does make perusing articles online much easier, so if you’ve never played around with Reader at all, now would be a good time to check it out! I’m a fan.