You can use Squirt, a very basic Javascript bookmarklet, on (nearly) any page. It can read the main body text (or the text you highlight) to you word for word at any speed between 250 and 950 words per minute.
The window that lets you select a speed
what you observe while reading. incredibly minimalist.
This item is fantastic for reading online. I’m at ease in the 750–850 range after some warming up, and I’m confident that with a little more practice, I’d be at ease at 950. At that pace, I can read most stories in under two minutes and complete my morning news catch-up much faster.
This is how it goes:
Go to this GitHub repository at https://github.com/Nateliason/squirt-html-base and copy the HTML file into a folder on your PC.
The text you wish to fast read should be pasted where it says “YOUR TEXT HERE” in the HTML file after opening it in Notepad, no need to do anything more complicated.
save the document
Open PowerShell or Terminal, whichever you prefer, and go to the folder where the HTML file is located.
(I’m assuming you have Python installed; if not, do that first.) Run “python -m SimpleHTTPServer.”
You can access your text file by going to your browser and entering “127:0:0:1:8000” in the URL field.
You can begin speed reading by clicking “Start Speed Reading.”
This is a temporary fix until someone (perhaps me) creates a static webpage where you may paste in material you wish to speed read using Squirt.
Wait a Minute…
You can’t just copy and paste from a PDF as it’s technically a picture of a document, and Amazon uses DRM on their kindle eBooks (as do most eBook companies), so that doesn’t entirely fix the problem, does it?
A quick Google search will reveal up a ton of websites that will convert your PDFs to Word files for free (and they actually do a very decent job), as well as a few sites/programs that can convert your Kindle ebooks into word files. Fortunately, these issues have already been resolved for us.
