Uploaded PDFs now keep their structure, and a few smaller improvements to saving and to Highlights from the past two weeks.
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Headings, paragraphs and lists in PDFs
Lantern now reads a PDF the way the page is laid out, so sections become headings, paragraphs break where the writer broke them and lists stay lists. Page numbers, running headers, tables of contents and figure labels are left out, footnotes are gathered at the end, and code keeps its line breaks.
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Sort and narrow your highlights
Arrange everything you have kept by article, by author or newest first, and narrow the list to a single article or writer.
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See what is being saved
While a link or PDF is being read, the save bar shows which one, including PDFs you upload from the menu.
The PDF changes apply to PDFs you upload from now on. On iPhone and iPad, they need the newest version of the app.
Highlights that come back for a reason
The passages Lantern brings back each day are now chosen for what they say, spaced out sensibly, and shaped by what you tell it.
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Passages worth seeing again
Lantern reads each highlight and favors the ones that hold up on their own, like ideas and lines worth rereading, over fragments or news that has gone stale.
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Passages that connect
When highlights from different articles pick up the same idea, they come back together, so you can see a thread running through your reading.
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Spaced out sensibly
A passage you have just seen waits a while before it returns, and the wait grows each time.
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Tell it what helps
Choose Glad I saw this to see a passage sooner, or Don’t bring back to stop seeing it there. It always stays in everything you’ve kept.
On iPhone and iPad, this needs the newest version of the app.
Video, audio and sharper pictures
Articles now keep the video and audio their writers embedded, and pictures load at the best size your screen can show.
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Embedded video stays in the story
Players from YouTube, Vimeo, Loom, TED, Dailymotion and Wistia, and videos uploaded to Substack newsletters, now stay where the writer put them and play in the reading column. Nothing starts on its own.
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Podcasts and audio
Spotify, SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Bandcamp and plain audio files keep their players, so an episode mentioned in a piece is one tap away.
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Sharper pictures
Lantern now keeps every size a publisher offers for a picture, so photos look crisp on high resolution screens instead of soft.
This applies to articles you save from now on. Articles already in your library keep the copy saved at the time.
A steadier library on phones
A fix for long titles in the list view.
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Fix: In list view on a phone, an article with a long title or source no longer pushes the whole library sideways.
Find by meaning
Search inside an article, or across your highlights, by describing what you remember rather than the exact words.
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Find in article
Press Command F on the web, or the search button in the iPhone reader, and type a word or describe a passage, like “the bit about habits”. Lantern finds it even when the words differ.
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Search your highlights by meaning
The Highlights search understands a description too, so a passage you half remember is easy to find again.
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Remove a highlight on iPhone
Tap a highlight in the reader to remove it.
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Fix: The reader fits phone screens properly on the web.
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Fix: Search fields show a single outline when selected.