Roam Research Docs · Help & user documentation

Roam Reader

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• Roam Reader is a Chrome extension for reading on the web with Roam beside you: highlight, tag, and comment on an article, and your notes land in your graph.
• The article stays in its original layout. Most reader apps strip the page down; Roam Reader leaves it intact and puts your notes in a sidebar next to it.
• It also keeps reading lists, so articles you mean to read have somewhere to go.
• There's an in-depth video tutorial if you'd rather watch this page than read it.
  • {{video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stJ7SGo6J9w}}

Setting it up

• Install Roam Reader from the Chrome Web Store and pin it to your address bar.
• On any article, click the astrolabe icon and sign in with your Roam account.
• Click it once more to choose which graph your reading lists and notes go to.

Saving articles for later

• Click the astrolabe on an article, adjust the title and metadata, and add tags if you want them.
• Save it to Inbox, or straight to Shortlist or Archive.
• Reading lists can be filtered, and filters can be saved as views that sync to your graph. There's a query builder for more involved filters.

Reading and taking notes

• Click the astrolabe and choose Take Notes. A sidebar opens beside the page, and your notes go under today's date.
• To highlight, select text in the article and click the highlighter icon that appears. You can pick a color.
• Highlights are added to the sidebar automatically, in the order they appear in the article.
• Indent the empty bullet beneath your latest highlight, and the highlights that follow will nest under it. An outline forms while you read.
• The tag and comment icons on a highlight add a tag or a nested comment, with the formatting handled for you.

How it lands in your graph

• Saved articles first appear as single blocks on a Reading List: Inbox page, with their metadata nested underneath, so your graph doesn't fill up with pages you haven't read yet.
• An article expands into a page of its own only when you start taking notes on it.
• The entry template and the title format are configurable in Roam Reader's settings. A namespace-based title keeps reading material grouped as it grows.
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