Welcome to post nine in our “Summer of Reading with Read&Write” series. For a quick reminder, Read&Write is free for all staff and students at RRC Polytech to use! While it has many, many, features, we’re highlighting the reading features in this blog series.

Disclaimer: this post assumes that users have both installed/signed into Read&Write, and self-registered in the Read&Write Tutorial in LEARN. If you haven’t, we suggest reviewing:

• Our Summer Reading with Read&Write – Kick Off blog post,
• Post two, Summer of Reading with Read&Write – Reading Basics,
• Post three, Summer of Reading with Read&Write – Unreadable Text,
• Post four, Summer of Reading with Read&Write – Screen Masking,
• Post five, Summer of Reading with Read&Write – Highlighters,
• Post six, Summer of Reading with Read&Write – Dictionaries,
• Post seven, Summer of Reading with Read&Write – Vocabulary Lists,
• and post eight, Summer of Reading with Read&Write – Rewordify.

Simplify

Reading online can get overwhelming quickly. Many webpages include ads, sidebars, buttons, pop‑ups, or long stretches of text that make it hard to focus. If you’ve ever wished you could “clean up” a webpage, or make it less distracting, the Simplify tool in Read&Write is exactly what you need!

The Simplify tool works only in the Read&Write web extension, not the desktop version.
This makes it perfect for reading articles in LEARN, news sites, research pages, and any web content that feels cluttered.

What Does Simplify Do?

Simplify aims to remove distracting elements from a webpage so that only the important text remains. Of course, users are responsible to ensure nothing essential or important was removed. The intent is to make the page easier to read and help you stay focused by:

• Remove ads and sidebars
• Cut out extra buttons and clutter
• Reformat the text into a cleaner layout
• Make long passages less overwhelming

It’s like turning a busy webpage into a simple, clean reading view.

How to use Simplify

1. Open the Read&Write web extension in your browser (Simplify is not available in the desktop version of Read&Write)
2. Go to the webpage you want to read
3. Click the Simplify button on the Read&Write toolbar. The page will reload in a simplified, streamlined format
4. Adjust the text size, spacing, or background color if the options are available.

From here, you can also use Read Aloud, highlighters, Dictionary, or other tools on the simplified version of the text.

Caution!

As Simplify removes parts of the webpage, always double‑check that it didn’t take out anything important — such as:

• Assignment instructions
• Images, diagrams, or tables
• Notes from your instructor
• Links or citations

It’s a great tool, but it’s helpful to compare it with the original page to make sure nothing essential is missing.

More Information

For more information, check out the Simplify section of the Read&Write LEARN Tutorial!

“Homework”

Use the Simplify tool on this blog post!

AI Usage Acknowledgement

This post was jointly written by Copilot and a human.