Information for Publishers

How to optimize and control Instapaper's interaction with your site and readers, or integrate Instapaper buttons on your site.

Control text parsing for your site with HTML

To control Instapaper’s parser on your own site, you can use these class names in your HTML:

  • instapaper_title: The first element with this class will be used as the title. If omitted, the HTML <title> element is used and Instapaper will try to remove common prefixes (such as “Archive”).
  • instapaper_body: The first element with this class will be used as the body container. All text outside of this element will be removed from the text output. If omitted, Instapaper will try to locate a suitable body container that includes all article text with minimal clutter. If such a container cannot be found with confidence, the HTML <body> element will be used.
  • instapaper_ignore: Any elements with this class, and their contents, will be removed from the text output. It’s not necessary to specify this on anything outside of the instapaper_body element, if present.

If any of these tags are present in your site’s HTML, they will override the corresponding directives in Instapaper’s public text-parser configuration for your site.

Control text parsing for any site

If you’re a web programmer with basic working knowledge of XPath expressions, you can customize Instapaper’s public text-parser configuration for any site not otherwise configured by its owner or Instapaper.

Opt out of text parsing for your site

Most publishers value the increased engagement, retention, and social interaction that Instapaper encourages among their readership. But any publisher can choose to opt out of Instapaper text-parsing compatibility.

To opt out, have your site’s legal owner or copyright agent click here to contact Instapaper with the internet domain names of the site(s) you wish to opt out of text-parser compatibility. Please provide contact information for identity verification, including a daytime office phone number.

As of the time of writing, no major publishers have chosen to opt out. If you have any questions, please ask.

Integrating Instapaper with your site

You can add simple “Send to Instapaper” buttons to your site to give your readers an easy way to read your pages later.

Two-click links

Simply link to a URL with this format:

http://www.instapaper.com/hello2?url=____&title=____&description=____

Each of the url, title, and description values must be URL-encoded, and title and description are optional (but title is recommended).

Readers will be sent through an Instapaper confirmation page and redirected back to your site upon completion.

If they don’t have an Instapaper account, or are not logged in, an explanatory message will appear and they’ll be given a chance to log in or create an account before adding your page’s URL and returning to your site.

One-click buttons

You can create an <IFRAME> button for Instapaper with this format:

<iframe border="0" scrolling="no" width="78" height="17" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0"
 style="margin-bottom: -3px; z-index: 1338; border: 0px; background-color: transparent; overflow: hidden;"
 src="http://www.instapaper.com/e2?url=____&title=____&description=____"
></iframe>

Like the link option above, each of the url, title, and description values must be URL-encoded, and title and description are optional (but title is recommended).

  • Example button:

If readers are logged into Instapaper, this is a one-click button.

If they don’t have an Instapaper account, are not logged in, or have restrictive cookie settings, they will be sent through the confirmation page like the link option above.