ReadingRate · What's new · 2026-02-08

Illustrate a passage as you read

This feature was retired on 7 November 2026. Until then you could select a passage while reading an EPUB on the website and choose Illustrate, and the app wrote a scene description out of the text and generated a picture of it. The reader's menu now offers four highlight colours, Quote, Note, Ask and Copy, and Illustrate is no longer in it.

Available on web.

It is scoped to a selection rather than a chapter because the unit of description in prose is a paragraph. A whole chapter averages out into mush; three sentences describing a room have something in them to draw.

Before the button lights up properly the selected text is scored on how visual it is — sensory words, colours, places and movement against dialogue tags and abstract nouns. A low score dims the button rather than disabling it, because a reader who wants to illustrate an argument should be allowed to try.

What it can't do

  • It is no longer available, on the website or in the iOS app.
  • It needs an EPUB open in ReadingRate. You cannot illustrate a passage from a paper book you are tracking.
  • Only the first two thousand characters of a selection are used.
  • One fixed style — atmospheric book illustration. There is no choice of look.
  • Credits are deducted before the image is made, and a failed generation is not refunded.

Questions people ask

Can I generate an image of a scene from a book?
Not any more. ReadingRate's web reader could illustrate a selected passage until 7 November 2026, when the reader's menu was rebuilt around highlights, quotes and notes.

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