Reading Spotlight

Dim the surrounding page and use reading aids like a ruler and typography controls for long web pages.

Reading Spotlight is a local, privacy-conscious reading focus aid for Chrome. It keeps the original web page in place and adds a lightweight focus layer that can highlight the current paragraph, dim nearby content, show a manual reading ruler, and adjust typography on article-like pages. It is designed for readers who want less visual noise without switching into a separate reader view. Reading Spotlight does not extract articles into a new page, summarize content, send page text to a server, or collect browsing activity. Key features: - Paragraph Spotlight dims the surrounding page while preserving context around the current block. - Gentle Dim provides a softer mode for feeds and mixed layouts. - Reading Ruler adds a draggable horizontal guide with color and thickness presets, plus an optional persistent line highlight in a choice of colors. - Progress Bar shows paragraph-based reading progress. - Typography Layer adjusts readable content width and line height on article-like pages. - Safe Mode reduces or suspends the focus layer on form-heavy, player-heavy, and app-like pages. - Site Exclusions let users disable the extension on selected hostnames. - Privacy and data controls show and clear locally stored reading progress and excluded sites. Privacy: Reading Spotlight runs locally in the active tab after a user action such as opening the popup, using the keyboard shortcut, or choosing the context menu item. It does not request broad host permissions. Page content is processed locally and is not sent to a server. Optional reading progress and excluded hostnames stay on your device. Visual preferences use Chrome's built-in settings sync and may sync across your browsers depending on your Chrome settings. Reading Spotlight uses no analytics or telemetry. Permissions: - activeTab and scripting: inject the reading layer into the current tab after a user action. - storage: save visual preferences, local site exclusions, and optional reading progress. - contextMenus: provide a page context menu toggle. New in 2.1.2: - Improved spotlight alignment when text width changes, images load, or the page layout shifts. - More reliable reading positions on dynamically updated pages. Articles with a visible heading and opening paragraph now start at the opening, while manual selections and mid-article reading positions are respected. - Better keyboard compatibility with page controls, modified shortcuts, and Japanese text input. Paragraph navigation remains available on dimmed articles while app and player controls stay protected. - Faster reading-ruler text highlighting on long pages, with improved regression coverage for Japanese text, ruby annotations, and emoji. - Fixed incorrect X/Twitter detection on unrelated domains and improved restoration of original page backgrounds after Dark Mode is disabled. - Expired optional reading-progress records are now cleaned up during extension use, including records for pages you have not revisited.