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Evernote Clearly hands-on: Chrome Extension aims for distraction free reading

Evernote Clearly hands-on: Chrome Extension aims for distraction free reading

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The Evernote Clearly Chrome Extension works much like Instapaper or Readability, stripping pages of ads and navigation for clean reading.

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evernote clearly

Here's an odd new "distraction free" Chrome Extension from Evernote. The cloud-based note-taking app company just launched the new Clearly extension for improving the readability of web articles. Activated by a small lamp button in Chrome's menu bar, the extension works much like Instapaper, Readability, or Safari's reader features, stripping out ads and site navigation so that you can focus on the article. Once clicked, the Clearly interface slides in from the left side of the browser, and offers a print and 'clip to Evernote' button. It's generally fast to load, and keyboard command junkies can create custom commands for quickly loading the overlay and clipping to Evernote. You'll also find text options, which include several themes and a decently featured theme editor.

Unfortunately, the Clearly clipping tool can only clip the entire article; you won't be able to save images or select specific text highlights. Yes, you can use the Chrome Web Clipper in the menu bar, but right clicking on a text selection breaks the contextual menu clipper. The free Clearly extension is available in the Chrome Web Store, and while it's good to see another competitor in the distraction free browsing space, we'd love to see a reading list of our saved articles integrated into Clearly's interface.