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The reading you have to do is the reading speed readers are worst at.
A novel is one stream of words, so a speed reader can take it apart and hand it back a word at a time. A textbook is not. Its columns, figures, tables and equations are not decoration over the content — for that kind of book they are the content, and a tool that flattens them has thrown away the part you needed.
Open ReadKinetic and import a PDF, an EPUB or a Word document. No install, no account, and nothing leaves your device.
Two readers, one surface
Most tools make you choose. A speed reader gives you pace and takes away the page; a document reader gives you the page and no way to get through it. ReadKinetic does not ask you to pick, because the two are the same surface in two states.
Hold, and the words move
One word at a time, each placed so your eye never has to travel. Let go and they stop instantly — nothing runs on without you, so there is no "pause" to hunt for and nothing to catch up with.
Let go, and the book is there
Not a panel over the reader — the book itself, at the sentence you reached. Headings set as headings, quotations behind a rule, tables framed, figures in place, links you can follow. Nothing opened and nothing closed.
For a PDF, the page as it was printed
Drawn from your own file: columns where the typesetter put them, equations as set, plates at full size, two pages side by side on a wide screen. And still part of the app — tap any line to start reading from there.
Stop at the mathematics
Which is what you do on paper anyway. Take the prose at four hundred words a minute, stop where the reasoning starts, and read that at the speed reasoning takes. The switch costs one gesture because there is nowhere to switch to.
Built against a real one
The document this was developed against is a 1390-page mathematics text: 575,000 words, 62 megabytes, dense with symbols and cross-references. It opens with its own seven-part contents list, lands on the page you left, and scrolls no more slowly at page 1200 than at page 3 — pages are drawn as they approach and released as they pass, so the cost is what is on your screen rather than what is in the book.
What it will not do
It cannot read a scan. A scanned document is a stack of photographs with no text in it, and there is nothing for any reader to extract. ReadKinetic says so plainly rather than importing a blank book — run it through OCR first and import the result. You can check a file here before importing it.
It cannot say an equation out loud. Notation is not made of words. It shows it to you instead, which is the honest answer.
Everything stays on your device
Parsing, rendering, searching and storage all happen in your browser. The file never leaves the machine you opened it on — which is the part that matters when it is an unpublished paper, a set of exam materials or a document your employer would rather not see on someone else's server. It works offline, and that is the proof.
Related: PDF speed reader · Nothing is uploaded · Every format it reads
Common questions
Why do speed readers fail on textbooks?
Because they throw the layout away. A speed reader turns a book into one stream of words, which is exactly right for a novel and destroys a textbook: two columns interleave into nonsense, a table of results becomes a sentence, an equation becomes rubble, and every figure the sentences refer to simply is not there. The reading you most want to get through is the reading these tools are worst at.
What does ReadKinetic do differently?
It keeps both. Hold to read and the words come one at a time in a fixed position, the way any RSVP reader works. Let go and you are standing on the actual page — headings set as headings, figures where they belong, tables in their own frame, and for a PDF the page exactly as it was typeset. Neither is a mode you enter; stopping is the page.
Can I read the equations?
You can see them, which is what matters. Mathematical notation is not made of words, so no word-at-a-time reader can say it to you. The pattern that works is the one you already use on paper: take the prose at speed, stop at the mathematics, and read that at the speed of the reasoning. This is the first free reader where both halves of that live in the same place.
Does it work on a 1000-page book?
Yes. It was built against a 1390-page mathematics text. Pages are drawn as they come near and released as they go, so a long book costs no more to scroll than a short one; reopening puts you back on your page rather than travelling there; and if the file carries its own table of contents it is used, so the book opens with its real chapters rather than a list of page numbers.
Can I search a textbook and mark passages?
Yes, and both work on the page you are looking at rather than in a separate panel. Find searches the whole book and offers each match the way a tapped word is offered — your place does not move until you accept it. Marks can be made from the page itself, and a marked passage stays visible in the text.
Is any of this uploaded?
No. The file is parsed and, for a PDF, rendered by JavaScript running in your own browser. Both the text and the file itself stay on your device, including while the pages are being drawn. The simplest proof is that it all works with your network turned off.
What does it cost?
Nothing. There is no account, no subscription and no advertising. It is kept free by readers who choose to support it.
Open a file and see.
Free, no account, nothing uploaded. Works offline once loaded.
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