I wrote recently about why I can’t read on computer screens and the workflow I use to deal with it: capture, organize, read. Passages is the tool I built to run that workflow.

I looked at what was out there, from read-later apps to send-to-Kindle services, and none of them did quite what I wanted. Most were built around reading inside the app, and the e-reader was an afterthought. I wanted the e-reader to be the destination from the start, and I wanted control over how my reading was organized and formatted.

So Passages is built around the same three steps from the previous post.

Capturing

Capturing an article takes a single click. There is a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox, and a bookmarklet for anything else. You click, the article is saved, and you go back to whatever you were doing without losing your train of thought.

Organizing

Captured articles land in an inbox, waiting to be triaged. From there you group them into what Passages calls Publications: collections of articles put together however you like, by date, author, topic, or anything else. I think of them as magazines I assemble myself.

When a publication feels ready, you “bind” it. Passages turns it into an ebook you can download or send wirelessly to your Kindle or Kobo.

Reading

I spent a lot of time on content extraction and rendering. The parser is tuned for e-reader screens, so it keeps the prose clean, simplifies formatting, drops most images, and strips out videos and embedded widgets. The rendering engine is built specifically for assembling collections of articles into different ebook formats. On the device, it reads like a regular book.

Where it is now

Building Passages has been a lot of fun. I built it for myself and learned a lot about ebook formatting and content parsing along the way. I’m also reading more, and my read-later backlog is finally shrinking.

The current version does everything I wanted. I have plenty of ideas for integrations and more advanced features, but I’d rather hear what users actually want before building them.

This is a passion project, and I put a small monthly price on it to see whether it can pay for itself. If you want to try it, sign up and send me a message. I’m happy to give you an unlimited free pass.