Instapaper extracts web articles for your Kindle

This is a really effective free utility that picks up the text-body of an article while ignoring the side links and ads all around it and then gets it ready for reading later and for delivery to your Kindle if you want (there's a 'pro' version that lets you do tilt scrolling if using this for an iPod).

 It does best when you use the webpage's option to 'print' an article (easier to determine the text you need) or to choose a 'single page' version if that's offered by the website.

So far, I've received really nicely formatted versions of the articles without any of the stuff to the sides.  But there are times when a page can confuse it, I read.  TIME gave it a Top Ten iPhone App for 2008.  Here are some press reviews.

If you sign up at Instapaper, it'll display a form to add the URL of a page but, much better, gives you the option of just using a "Read Later" bookmarklet that you can move to your browser's Bookmarks toolbar.  When you click the icon, it will automatically pick up the URL of the web-page you're on and then set the article up for reading later and delivery for your Kindle when you're ready for that.

You're given your own Instapaper page, which will hold the article(s) and make a 'digest' of articles in one file, with a choice of least 1 or 5 or whatever number of articles to include in the one digest-file-send (the digest will tend to cost no more than 15c with Amazon's new email-to-Kindle fee) or you can choose to send just what is there, manually, to the Kindle.  You just have to make sure that your Amazon ManagerYourKindle page includes the approval to accept Kindle mail from the special Instapaper From:email address given on their page.

To 'manage' your setup, you click on the "Account" option at the top of the page and choose to send, daily or weekly, a digest of articles that have been saved for reading later, or just manually send one instead.

They don't want you to send Feeds though. For that, they (and I) recommend Kindlefeeder.

It's worth the time to read Creator Marco Arment's Instapaper FAQ and check out his blog for plans and features.

Also see CutePDF for an interesting alternative utility.