Enable Chrome's Reader View manually, when it isn't offered?

Technically, it is possible to request on-demand reader view (also known as "simplified view") on Chrome for Android.

Chrome uses DOM Distiller to determine if a page is worth to be simplified, then simplify and render it as a new page if requested.

There are a few ways to load a URL in reader view:

1. (Manual) from chrome://dom-distiller, a debug page that allows a user to input a URL and force load it in simplified mode.




2. (Possible idea for automation) a unique URL for every simplified page, which can be directly accessed from the address bar.

   
   
   

   chrome-distiller://<UUID>_<HASH>/?url=<URL>
   
   

   
   
   

   Where:

   
   
   
   
   
   • UUID: Universally unique identifier. By default, it uses UUIDv4 (random), but any UUID works, including nil UUID (00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000)
   
   
   • HASH: SHA-256 of URL
   
   
   • URL: target URL (optionally, percent-encoded for safety).
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

   Example URL for this page:

   
   
   

   chrome-distiller://00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000_07036109224c60335e35e3b4c22dd02cf775f69d4430245c4c454aff570d6787/?url=https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/218970
   
   

Additional reading:

• Ctrl blog - The many URI schemas used by the browsers’ “Reader Views”


• Chromium.org Google Group - [Android] [Reader mode]Instant reader mode for new tab or WebView