Google Reader Absolutely Compact Gets More On-Screen

Firefox with Greasemonkey or Stylish: Google Reader’s recent redesign did streamline its interface, but ever-resourceful reader Dustin wants to maximise the feed reading area even more with his new “Absolutely Compact” user style. Google Reader Absolutely Compact packs even more text onto the screen than Google’s new default look. Be warned: you’ve got to be a heavy keyboard shortcut user to enjoy this one, since the style strips away much of the interface. It also kills much of the whitespace in headline-only view, which can make scanning a bit harder on your peepers. Before you go install Greasemonkey or Stylish to try it out, compare before and after screenshots.

Here’s Reader’s current default look:

And here’s how it looks with Absolutely Compact enabled:

As you can see, with Absolutely Compact enabled, more than double the number of headlines fit into the same exact screen space. The Absolutely Compact style for Google Reader works with either the Stylish or Greasemonkey extension for Firefox, and it’s a free download. Thanks, Dustin!