Admit it. Your tabs are piled up, and your fingers get tired because you have to keep clicking through menus to save some pages in PDF or format citations.
Here is one trick that students usually overlook. Browser Bookmarklets.
Think of it as little robots living in your bookmarks toolbar. Not a heavy extension that slows your Chrome or Edge down. Only a small code, the exact same way website link is saved.
Once you click on it, it becomes alive and instantly transforms your webpage. Magic, literally.
There is no need to be a programming guru to use it. Only to know how to copy and paste.
First of all, why do you want to use it?
Suppose you are working on your history paper, and you need to cite five different websites.
You have to copy URL, then the title of the website, and then the author of the work, putting it all in order.
It is unbelievably tedious and takes ages to do.
However, with bookmarklet, you only need to click on a button, and, voilà , it is done. Sounds like cheating and basically is it. You save minutes per each task which leads to hours of free time you can spend playing games or scrolling through your TikTok feed.
Another useful function of bookmarklet is removing all useless stuff from an article you are going to read later. Ever tried to print the webpage and found out that it has ads and huge headers that waste your ink?
A bookmarklet is able to remove all of that, leaving you with only text and pictures that you need.
It makes webpages look like clean and convenient Kindle book.
How to create one?
Turns out that it is quite easy.
Just navigate to the bookmarks toolbar of your browser. Right-click on it and choose "Add Page" or "Add Bookmark". You will see two boxes, for Name and for URL.
The first one is quite obvious. It is what you want to name your bookmarklet. The second one is the place where the magic happens.
Instead of writing a URL of some website, you write a special code string that starts with "javascript:", making your browser execute a command, not go to the site.
Let's begin with the simplest one which makes all the text on the webpage huge. Sometimes your teachers post notes online in 8-font that is impossible to read.
Just create a new bookmark and name it "Make Text Huge". In the URL field, put this code precisely:
javascript:(function(){document.body.style.fontSize='24px';})();
Save it. Then navigate to any page with tiny text and click on your new bookmarklet. Everything instantly becomes huge. You created a program.
Okay, it was funny, but now we will try something that you will really use in school.
Formatting works cited pages in English classes is the absolute worst thing. So, let's create a button that will gather all the information you need.
Create a new bookmark and name it "Get Citation Info". Enter this code in URL field:
javascript:(function(){var t=document.title;var u=window.location.href;prompt('Copy this:',t+' - '+u);})();
It is a tiny piece of code that gets page title and URL and displays a prompt with the text ready to be copied. You just paste it into your Google Document and half of the job is already done.
You can even use this trick for fun.
Ever wanted to download an image from a site, but a right-click menu is locked? Some websites block it to protect their images, which is very annoying when you just need a photo for your presentation.
Use this one. Name it "View All Images".
javascript:(function(){var i,x;for(i=0;x=document.images[i];++i)window.open(x.src);})();
Once you click it, it will open each image on the page in a new tab.
Now let's move to something a little bit more complicated. Bookmarklets can do math.
Suppose you are shopping for a new pair of shoes on Nike or StockX and you want to know the total price of them right away. You can create a tax calculator.
Name it "Calculate 8% Tax" or whatever else.
javascript:(function(){var p=prompt('Enter Price:');if(p)alert('Total with tax: $'+(parseFloat(p)*1.08).toFixed(2));})();
Click it, enter the price of the shoes, and it will show you the total price. No need to launch a calculator app on your phone or switch tabs.
The best thing about this bookmarklets is that you can easily delete them if you do not like them anymore.
There is no installation process, no "Are you sure you want to add this extension" messages popping up. Just a bookmark that plays tricks.
You can find lots of such scripts on GitHub if you search for "bookmarklets". There are even bookmarklets that change background color of the page and hide all comments on YouTube.
In fact, once you start using them, you will feel like a hacker from a movie. You control website instead of just browsing through it.
It completely changes your perception of Internet. You are not a mere consumer anymore. You are the one who controls the experience.
So, free some space in your bookmarks toolbar and install some of these scripts. Test them out. You will be surprised how much time you save.
And, hey, if your friends see you clicking buttons and transforming websites right away, you will look like a tech genius. Nice bonus for five minutes of work, isn't it?
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