Comments on: Reader Question

By: Jim Lerman

Jim Lerman — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 04:59:44 +0000

I don’t know if this absolutely fills the need of the inquirer, but it might. On the other hand, it’s a very cool app in any event.
Cueprompter works like a teleprompter. It’s a web app. You just load in the copy you want to scroll up the screen and set the speed and size of the font you want.
It’s originally designed to serve as a teleprompter type aid for presentations and such, but there’s no reason it couldn’t serve the purpose requested in the inquiry.
It’s on the web and totally free. I have no connection to the company, just a satisfied user.
http://cueprompter.com/

By: MichaelR

MichaelR — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 06:34:41 +0000

For reading PDFs and organising a PDF collection I like the straightforward free Adobe Digital Editions reader for PC/Mac from http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/ Only line/page up/down but remembers last page read.

By: fs

fs — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 17:43:03 +0000

This is a fun coincidence, but it turns out I’ve just programmed and (yesterday!) published a little web app that is similar to Spreeder, but a little more featureful, I think (you can display more than one word at a time, and keep track of where you are in the text — and no ads ):

http://www.fsavard.com/code/speedread/
(nothing to download, just click play)

If you want an offline version for download, you might want to check out WordFlashReader, which also allows you to follow your position in the text by highlighting:
http://wordflashreader.sourceforge.net/

Yet I don’t think that’s exactly what you’re seeking. To do what you do with a sized-down window, I usually simply select the text repeatedly to have landmarks for my eyes.fs

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 16:40:39 +0000

Skim is a PDF reader for OS X that features a nice reading bar, as well as annotations.

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 15:20:06 +0000

This is a web utility that may be helpful:
http://www.spreeder.com/
Its designed as a speed reading app and by default displays a single word at a very high speed, but you can have it display several words at once at a much slower speed.

Alternatively there is an app for mac that will reformat text into columns that are designed to be easier to read.
http://amarsagoo.info/tofu/
If you still need a guide, you can just open a window and drag it around as if it were a notecard.

Hope that helps.