Table of Contents
- FAQ
- Will I actually read faster with this?
- What's the difference between Word, Sentence, and Paragraph modes?
- Will it work on my phone?
- Does it work offline?
- How do I get PDFs in?
- How much text can I paste?
- Does it have a "library" of papers?
- Can I export my reading history?
- I want to use the ORP feature in a different language
- Why is the colour scheme dark teal? It doesn't match RangerHQ green.
- Is the source open?
- Where do I report bugs or suggest features?
- Who made this?
FAQ
Will I actually read faster with this?
Yes, with practice. RSVP eliminates the eye-saccade time that normally caps reading speed at ~300 WPM. With the ORP anchor giving your eye a fixation target, most readers reach 600–800 WPM in Word mode within an hour of practice, and 1000+ WPM in Sentence mode within a week.
Comprehension at those speeds is real but not magical. You'll absorb arguments and findings; you may miss subtle phrasing, nuance, or specific numbers you didn't fixate on. For first reads of academic papers this is usually fine. For re-reads where you want every word, drop to ~400 WPM in Sentence mode.
What's the difference between Word, Sentence, and Paragraph modes?
| Mode | Display | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Word | One word at a time | Fast skim, getting the gist, the "wow I'm fast" experience |
| Sentence | One sentence at a time with an ORP anchor letter | Comprehension-grade reading of methods / results sections |
| Paragraph | One paragraph at a time | Previewing, postviewing, skim-for-quotes |
You can switch on the fly with 1 / 2 / 3. The reader remembers your position when you switch.
Will it work on my phone?
Yes — the HTML file works in any modern mobile browser (Safari iOS 14+, Chrome Android, Firefox). The UI is responsive; the WPM slider works as a touch slider; the spacebar key isn't there but the on-screen Play button is.
That said: Ranger Reader is most useful on a screen big enough that the RSVP text doesn't crowd the corners. A tablet works great. A phone works but feels cramped.
Does it work offline?
Yes. The HTML file has no external dependencies. Open it from your filesystem (double-click), or from a saved copy on your machine. Browser doesn't need internet. Reader works fully.
This is the point. The whole reason Ranger Reader exists instead of using SwiftRead is that SwiftRead requires a login and a network — and you can lose access either at any time.
How do I get PDFs in?
Convert them to plain text first. See How to Use for the runbook with pdftotext (free on every OS).
A built-in PDF-to-text converter is on the roadmap but adds significant file size (PDF parsers are not small) and Ranger Reader has been resisting feature bloat. For now, the one-step conversion is the cleanest path.
How much text can I paste?
Tested with academic papers up to 30,000 words (a full PhD thesis section). No issues. The reader handles them at 60 fps regardless of WPM because rendering is one element per frame, not a full document layout.
The localStorage cap is ~5 MB (browser-dependent). 30,000 words is ~200 KB. You'd need to paste the entire Bible (~750,000 words) to bump into the storage cap.
Does it have a "library" of papers?
Not yet. You paste / drag one paper at a time. A future version could add a list view in localStorage to switch between several papers without re-pasting, but the feature isn't there today.
For now, the workflow is: convert paper 1 → drop it in → read it → repeat with paper 2.
Can I export my reading history?
Not in the current version. Your reading position is stored, but there's no "export progress as JSON" button. If you want one, open an issue — it would be a 10-line addition.
I want to use the ORP feature in a different language
The current ORP formula assumes Western alphabet, left-to-right text with whitespace-separated words. It will produce technically-correct ORP positions for any language that uses these conventions (English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, etc.).
For languages where the formula doesn't fit (Chinese / Japanese / Korean — character-based; Arabic / Hebrew — right-to-left; Thai — no spaces), Ranger Reader will run but the ORP positioning won't be meaningful. A community contribution adding language-specific ORP rules would be welcome.
Why is the colour scheme dark teal? It doesn't match RangerHQ green.
Ranger Reader pre-dates the RangerHQ visual identity unification. The dark teal (#0e1a23) and WordPress blue accent (#2271b1) come from the very first prototype. They've been kept because long reading sessions are easier on dark teal than on dark green — green is too saturated as a background colour for hours of reading.
If a future version aligns the palette with the rest of the family, the ORP red and the comfortable contrast ratios would be preserved either way. This is a cosmetic-not-functional decision.
Is the source open?
Yes. GPL v2 or later. The entire source is one HTML file you can read in any text editor in 10 minutes. Repo: https://git.davidtkeane.com/ranger/rangerhq-reader.
Where do I report bugs or suggest features?
https://git.davidtkeane.com/ranger/rangerhq-reader/issues or email david@davidtkeane.com.
Who made this?
David Keane, Dublin, Ireland. Built while drowning in MSc Cybersecurity thesis papers at NCI Dublin. david@davidtkeane.com · https://davidtkeane.com