Better Reading Experience with Edge Browser

While any browser can be used to read these books, Microsoft's Edge browser offers a few things that result in a significantly better reading experience. The following sections describe the parts and the entire process.

Reading Aloud

When viewing a chapter, if you "right click", there is a "Read Aloud" option on the right-click menu.

Sometimes, listening is preferable to reading. Sometimes, listening and reading combined works better.

Chapter Summary using CoPilot AI

Microsoft has integrated its CoPilot AI into the Edge browser. You can use CoPilot to obtain a summary of a chapter. If you have not used CoPilot, here are a few instructions...

When viewing a chapter, press the CoPilot icon, which can be found in the upper right corner of Edge. This opens a CoPilot sidebar. In this sidebar, you will see a "Create a summary" button. Press it and CoPilot will provide you with the summary.

If you had previously opened CoPilot, then in order to obtain a summary, you will need to refresh it first. To refresh, press the refresh icon. It is very close to top right corner of CoPilot sidebar. Then press the "Create a summary" button.

Once you have used CoPilot in various ways, you will find the above description rudimentary.

Section Summary using CoPilot AI

You can use CoPilot to obtain summary of any section. Here are the instructions...

While reading chapters in my books, you can choose the section or sections that you want to read and only those sections are displayed; and other sections are hidden. This was discussed in the previous chapter.

When viewing those selected sections, press the CoPilot icon, which can be found in the upper right corner of Edge. This opens a CoPilot sidebar. If you had previously opened CoPilot sidebar, then refresh it. In this sidebar, you will see a "Create a summary" button. Press it and CoPilot will provide you with the summary.

Rewrite Section using CoPilot AI

You could ask CoPilot to rewrite your selected sections by retaining its meaning and logic but cleaning up its grammar. Here are the instructions...

When viewing the selected sections, press the CoPilot icon, which can be found in the upper right corner of Edge. This opens a CoPilot sidebar. This sidebar has an input box in which you can chat with CoPilot. If you had previously opened the CoPilot sidebar, then refresh it. In this box enter the following request and then press the Enter key. CoPilot will present the webpage content rewritten for you.

Rewrite the entire contents of the webpage, without changing its meaning and logic flow, but eliminate all grammatical flaws.

Here is an alternative request that you can make.

Rewrite the entire contents of the webpage, without changing its meaning and logic flow, for a smoother reading experience

You could also try these same commands with the entire chapter being viewed, but CoPilot may not rewrite the entire chapter. This can also happen with sections that are too long.

Abstract or Summary

You could obtain an abstract of the chapter or section or sections that you are currently viewing by requesting CoPilot to produce the abstract with the following command (in AI field it is called a "prompt"):

Write an abstract for the webpage contents.

Here is another prompt that can generate both the abstract and the summary.

First, write an abstract for the page contents. Then, summarize the main points on this page.

Combining All Technologies

If you want to quickly get familiar with an entire book, then for each chapter, obtain both an abstract and summary, read them, and proceed to the next chapter.

Summaries aid in understanding the content being read. However, any summary, whether it is human written or AI generated, will skip a large amount of content. So, any summary can miss one or more important points during the summarization. So, reading summaries cannot be a substitute for reading the whole material. That said, summaries help you get started with the material. That is valuable.

Listening is easier than actually reading.

With all the technologies mentioned above, using the following steps helps in understanding the written word better:

Select an individual section
Obtain both its abstract and summary. Read it.
Use the "Read Aloud" feature and listen to the section.
Think about it. Let that thinking guide you to the next step.

Optimize Text for Smoother Readability

I use spelling checkers and grammar checkers to minimize (not eliminate) the flaws in my natural writing/typing.

I have considered using AI to rephrase entire books that I have written so that the rewritten text is much more smoother to read. I have experimented with many commands/prompts. For now, my decision is to keep my wording intact except for the elimination of spelling and grammar mistakes. There are many valid and important reasons, for me, to reject a complete AI driven rewording of everything that I have written.

If I were to do it, I have considered several commands/requests that I could issue to the AI and get the job done, without my supervision or review, with a sufficiently high degree of accuracy. Here are the main problems with this approach when I am using the currently available free version:

The amount of text that AI effectively reword/rewrite is limited. My opinion, after experimentation, is that it cannot handle more than a single section at a time, and AI finds longer sections challenging.
Sometimes, I use very specific words (like must instead of should). But, AI loses the meaning of the "must" and replaces the "must" with words that imply a meaning that is much weaker than "must".
Some of the words I use are names coined by me (using other English words) for naming parameters. The AI does not understand that these names should not be changed at all. It sees the English word components in these names and rewrites those names thereby losing the parameter name in the process.
Every rewrite of the same text is different.

Fully knowing the above shortcomings, some readers will still benefit from seeing the outcome of such a rewording (best when used for individual sections). The benefit accrues when a reader desires much more than a summary without a strict adherence to everything I have written.

If you want to try them out, here are several commands/prompts to reword the entire text:

Rewrite the contents of the webpage for a smoother reading experience, without changing the flow of logic, without changing meaning of the thought conveyed, and without changing the terms used.
Rewrite the webpage contents, without changing its meaning and flow, but eliminate all grammatical flaws.
Rewrite the entire webpage contents for a smoother reading experience while keeping intact the logic, meaning, structure, and key terms.
Rewrite the entire webpage contents for a smoother reading experience while keeping intact the logic, meaning, structure, and key terms. I need a detailed version - not a summarized version.

Analyzing Books with CoPilot

When reading a chapter (or a section or a few sections), here are some sample prompts that can get you started in analyzing the content. Note: each prompt is one entire paragraph. You can ask CoPilot AI to "Think Deeper" so that it gives well thought out answers.

What do you think about this webpage?
The webpage contains a chapter with sections in that chapter. Create an abstract for the entire chapter in the webpage, but keep information for each section separate.
What concrete proposals and ideas are mentioned in the webpage?
What concrete proposals (not ideas) are mentioned in the webpage?
What concrete ideas (not proposals) are mentioned in the webpage?
This webpage has several concrete proposals. For each of those proposals, tell me the reasons why the concrete proposal is made.
This webpage has several concrete proposals. For each of those proposals, tell me the how the proposal benefits the society.
This webpage has several concrete proposals. For each of those proposals, tell me the how this proposal benefits individuals in the society.
If the proposals in the webpage are implemented, then what kinds of difficulties a person is unlikely to face?