Make reading Wikipedia content easier and more accessible with Immersive Reader in Edge

[Shahina]

Note: We are in the process of releasing this feature, so it may be a little while before you see it in your respective channel and build.

With Microsoft Edge, we’re working to make the web more accessible and inclusive for everyone. One of the ways we’re doing this is with Immersive Reader, the built-in tool that lets you customize how you read online for an easier, more accessible experience to fit your needs.

We’ve been working to bring Immersive Reader to more and more pages across the web and today we’re excited to announce that Microsoft Edge just made more than 55 million web pages more accessible. You can now open all Wikipedia webpages in Immersive Reader by clicking Immersive Reader (book and speaker) icon in the address bar. Here is how a Wikipedia article on ‘Microsoft’ will appear in Immersive reader –

It has been a top ask from our community to extend Immersive Reader support for Wikipedia website. With this update we didn’t just meet the ask but also added some more optimizations in Immersive Reader view. Read on to learn about those updates.

Quickly navigate the page with Table of Contents 

New to Immersive Reader is a Table of Contents so you can easily navigate through Wikipedia pages while using Immersive Reader . Click on Contents with   icon (three lines and dots in the toolbar) to open the navigation pane and see a list of sections based on the Wikipedia webpage. You can click on any of the labels in the pane to navigate to that section of the webpage. You can keep the pane open for as long as you need it and close by either clicking Contents button or cross (x) button when you want to go back to reading the document.

Expand or collapse data tables as you read

This capability will help you to scroll through content easily by providing the option to hide tables that might not interest you.

When you open a new webpage in Immersive Reader, data tables will display first few rows followed by a button “Show more”. You can click this button to see more rows in the table.

Do try out Immersive reader to read Wikipedia and let us know about your reading experience with a Twitter post using #EdgeEDU, #ImmersiveReader. You can also leave a feedback from within Microsoft Edge. In Edge, you can go to “…” menu > Help and feedback > Send feedback, or simply use the keyboard shortcut (Shift+Alt+I) to open the feedback tool. 

Thanks for helping us create a great Immersive reader experience! 

- The Microsoft Edge Product team

[#2]

@Shahina 

Thanks for this great feature, very useful, love the table of content on Immersive Reader mode.

Spoiler

I have two feedbacks that I'm going to submit using the feedback button on Edge as well.

First is that this table of content does Not appear in Microsoft Docs pages, which is as important and useful as Wikipedia, if not more.

Microsoft Docs sorts contents in a table of content too but they don't appear in Immersive reader mode like Wikipedia's.

for example this page: 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/configmgr/apps/deploy-use/deploy-edge

my second feedbacks is about "show less"/"show more" options for tables in Immersive Reader. they don't have any animation, when you click on them, the page makes sudden jumps up and down.

this should be smooth and have a smooth animation so the reader won't lose where they were.

[#3]

Great feature. My only feedback is that the article in Immersive mode is too narrow especially if you have larger monitors and your browser s maximized. So, it would be nice if the text would adjust to the page, like website do.

[#4]

Thanks so much for this! I read Wikipedia frequently and I am sure a lot of people, including myself, will be helped by this feature.

[#5]

When will it be possible to choose a sans-serif font for Immersive Reader?

[#6]

@Paul_VC 
Hold on! We are working on it :) - You should be able to use it in Edge - 92

[#7]

@Shahina 

I like the immersive reader, but there are problems with how it displays equations:

1. Mathematical symbols on Wikipedia that are meant to be in line with text are displayed on their own line.
   
2. Equations are not visible with the dark theme in the immersive reader because they remain black.

[#8]

@Shahina 

Using the Immersive Reader on Wikipedia pages doesn't work at all as of Oct 2022 - only a "No data found" message appears:

Hope this gets fixed soon.

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Update: must've been a temporary issue, it works again, yay!