💡 WiseUp! Vol. 52 — A year of rethinking how we read and take notes

📍 Let's start with a reading recommendation

Text is king

In a world that presents more and more distractions from the written word, it’s actually laudable how it still stands the test of time (and screens). In his observant and witty blog, Adam Mastroianni analyzes the so-called “doom” of text, and why we should remain optimistic after all: “Videos can titillate, podcasts can inform, but there’s only one way to get that feeling of your brain folds stretching and your soul expanding, and it is to drag your eyes across text.”

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From the support inbox

Have questions about using Readwise or Reader in your workflow? We'd love to be your guide! Reply to this email with your question and you might be featured in an upcoming issue. Even if your question isn’t featured, we’ll respond to every message.

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❓ A Readwise question from Frederique M:

Is there a way to see related ideas across my highlights?

You can now discover patterns and shared ideas across what you have read, which helps your learning feel more connected. Chat with Your Highlights looks at your saved passages and shows how they relate to each other. It is like laying your notes out on a table and noticing themes you may have missed before. This can be especially helpful when your reading spans many books or years.

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❓ A Reader question from Naveen S:

How do I delete or clear all my saved articles in Reader so I can start fresh?

This gives you a New Year clean slate by clearing out all your Reader content and letting you start fresh. From the Reader app on your phone (iOS or Android), go to Account, tap your name, and choose Delete my account. When prompted, confirm Erase Reader content to remove your saved items. It is like beginning the year with empty shelves, ready for whatever you want to read next. As a reminder, this action cannot be undone, so you may want to export your data from the Profile page prior, just in case.

📖 New help doc of the week

Use Themed Reviews to dynamically create highlight collections

Themed Reviews are one of Readwise’s most under-utilized features, and it’s even better since we added the AI-powered ability to dynamically include highlights by describing a theme idea with natural language. Check out the documentation to find instructions on creating a new theme, along with practical tips and unique ideas for taking full advantage of the feature.

Read the guide

🎬 New video of the week

Capture the best parts of podcasts

In case you missed it, we recently added our most-requested feature ever to Reader: highlightable podcasts. Here’s how it works.

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📰 Jan 17 - Jan 23 updates

What's new in Reader and Readwise

🏷️ NEW! Tags Webhook — Rasul added a new webhook trigger that fires when you add a tag to a highlight. If you're using webhooks to sync your highlights with other tools, you can now get notified the moment you tag something.

🔊 Fixed TTS Jump Button — Mati fixed an issue where the TTS "jump to current position" button would reset to the beginning of the chapter when using horizontal pagination mode. It now correctly jumps to where the audio is playing.

📚 Fixed Kobo Encoding — Rasul resolved a character encoding issue that was causing missing apostrophes in highlights synced from Kobo devices.

👆 Fixed Tap-to-Scroll — You can once again tap the status bar to scroll to the top of document lists on iPhones, thanks to Mati.

💬 Improved Chat Availability — Ibai improved Chat with Document so it works even before document enhancement is complete, using the original transcript.

🤖 Fixed Themed Reviews — Ibai fixed an issue where some users were getting errors when generating Themed Reviews.

📖 Fixed Document Loading — Mitch fixed a race condition that could cause errors when loading some chunked documents (like EPUBs and long articles).

🦊 Fixed Highlight Extension — Highlights saved using "Save Highlight to Readwise" on Firefox pages weren't always capturing page titles correctly, causing them to be grouped incorrectly in your library. Ibai fixed it.

🐦 Improved Twitter Settings — The settings for saving Twitter bookmarks are now separate between Readwise 1.0 and Reader, so you can control them independently.

🖼️ Fixed Image Loading — Arek fixed an issue on iOS where certain article images (specifically .svgz compressed SVG files) weren't loading properly in full-size mode.

📄 Fixed PDF Toolbar — Mati fixed an issue where tapping icons in the PDF toolbar on iPad would cause the document to scroll back to the top.

🎬 Fixed YouTube Transcripts — Mati improved the reliability of YouTube transcript fetching. Some users were incorrectly seeing "YouTube has blocked access to transcripts" even when transcripts were available.

🛜 Parsing Updates — Krzys improved handling of Substack Notes and comments, so these now parse correctly when you save them to Reader. He also improved parsing for sahilbloom.com.

👍 Three featured finds from the CX team

From CX specialist Romi

Something to read 📖
Romi’s favorite cookbook author, Alison Roman, came out with a new book at the end of last year. It took this long to reach Romi’s hands (in Argentina!), and she’s been enjoying both the recipes and the lovely essays in it. If you’re into non-fussy, pantry-centered cooking, give it a read.

Something to focus 🧊
Waking up to a glass of cold brew is an amazing feeling, but Romi sometimes forgets to prepare it ahead of time. For those occasions, this rapid brewer by OXO comes in handy and saves the morning. In only five minutes, she’s typing away, coffee in hand.

Something to unwind 🎧
Olivia Dean’s latest album, The Art of Loving, matches perfectly with a night of sipping on orange wine and chatting with friends. The perfect ending to a hectic week!

💬 From the Readwise group chat

Meet me in Österreich

If you read that out loud, you might get an idea of what kind of shape our friend Hannes's country has. Let's file this under "info I didn't know I needed." 😂