These days most of us are becoming much more selective about using bookmarks or assigning favorite status to Web pages, as we strive to keep those collections under control. We need other ways to manage the Websites that we find and that’s where these alternatives may make a difference.
[Also read: How to free up storage space on your iPhone]
Always use Safari Reader
Before doing any of the following it makes sense to get to know the Safari Reader button. Situated to the left of the URL bar the button is used to create a decluttered version of most pages, so you get all the text and none of the cruft. It works well and means the information you use is likely to be more useful. Now let’s look at some of the things you can do with Websites in iOS:
Speak it
You can have iOS speak selected text for you. First of all go to Settings>General>Speech and make sure the Speak Selection button is enabled (turned to green). Now when you select text on screen you’ll be able to get iOS to read it to you. If you want entire pages read to you then enable the Speak Screen button. With this you’ll be able to get a whole page read to you by swiping down with two fingers from the top of the screen – but do enter Safari Reader view first if you want to avoid having ads read to you. iOS has lots of accessiblity tweaks that should benefit every user.
Add to Reading List
Reading List is sometimes all you need. When you add a page to your Reading List, iOS takes a functional picture of the page that is stored on your device and synced with all your other Apple devices. In future when you want to return to the page you’ll find it available to you in your Reading List. To add a page just tap the Share button and on the iOS Actions strip (Under the AirDrop and apps strips) you’ll find Add to Reading List (it looks like a pair of specs). To read items in the list, tap the Bookmark button and then the specs icon.
Create a PDF
It’s easy to turn any Web page into a PDF on iOS. When you’re on a page you want to save just tap the Share button and choose the App strip just above the iOS actions tier. Just scroll to the left and you’ll find Save PDF to iBooks. Tap this and the page you want to keep will be turned into a PDF and tucked away inside your iBooks collection, where it will sync to other devices.
Save to another app
Some apps (Dropbox, Evernote and others) will let you save page contents, for example the Save To Dropbox item available in the iOS Action strip will save webpages as PDFs to your Dropbox account. Alternatively enable Evernote and you’ll be able to clip pages to the service using the same Share button. There’s lots of other apps that offer this.
Add to Notes
Apple’s Notes may not yet be as powerful as Evernote, but they will improve and one thing they can be useful for is to save interesting Web pages inside collections of similar notes, so useful for researchers. Once again, go the page you want to store and then tap the Add To Notes button, you’ll be asked to assign the note to an existing collection or as a new note and that’s it, you’ll be able to get to that page from any Mac or iOS device running the current OS.
Add to News
You can also arrange for content from particular sites to be added to your News feed, just tap ‘Add to News’ in the Share menu.
Send an email
When on a page, tap Reader View and then choose the Mail option from the Share menu.
Ask Siri
Finally, you can also ask Siri to help you out. When you’re on a page you want to look at again, for example you can say: “Hey Siri, remind me to look at this Web page tomorrow at 9.” Siri will set a Reminder and you won’t forget to check the page. Read ten other ways Siri can help you get things done here.
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