Use Readability to Make Sites Zotero-Friendly

Every now and again, you discover something really useful, quite by accident. That happened to me recently. I was browsing the web, and found something I needed to print out, but the site in question wasn’t particularly printer-friendly.

That didn’t pose any particular problem; getting rid of on-screen clutter, whether for reading or printing purposes, is why I installed Readability, after all.

It was what happened after I loaded the site in Readability that was interesting. The site wasn’t Zotero-compatible before. After I loaded it in Readability, it was.

For example, here’s what ProtoScholar’s post on the importance of backups looks like when first loaded:

Note the Readability icons, and the lack of a Zotero icon.

Here’s what the post looks like after loading it in Readability:

A Zotero icon has magically appeared. Clicking on it results in the expected behavior: the page is added to the Zotero library, and Zotero grabs the screenshot along with the publication information, as seen below.

Admittedly, this discovery is hardly earth-shattering. But it’s saved me some time, and I get nice, clean screenshots in my Zotero library.

What about you? Have you accidentally stumbled upon small, but nevertheless useful, tips? Please share them in the comments!

[All post images are Creative Commons licensed Flickr photos by cavenderamy]