risp

Rapid Interactive Serial Presentation — a terminal RSVP speed reader.

Read plain text, Markdown, Org-mode, PDF, and EPUB one word (or chunk) at a time with a red optical-recognition-point (ORP) focus letter, live WPM control, ETA, and sentence context on pause.

Inspired by speedread and classic Spritz-style RSVP.

Features

• Modes: rsvp (default), chunked, guided
• Formats: .txt, .md, .org, .pdf, .epub
• Controls: +/- WPM · Space pause (sentence highlight) · q quit
• Resume: --start WORD_NUMBER
• Live ETA as you change speed

Install

From source (pip)

pip install .
# or editable
pip install -e .
risp book.epub

Nix flake (this repo)

nix run .# -- book.epub
# or enter a dev shell
nix develop

Nix classic

nix-build
./result/bin/risp book.epub

Usage

risp book.epub
risp notes.md --wpm 400
risp paper.pdf --mode chunked --chunk-size 5
risp book.epub --start 1500 --title "My Book"
risp book.epub --stats-only

  + / -     adjust WPM by 10
  space     pause / resume (shows surrounding sentence)
  q         quit

Dependencies

• Python ≥ 3.10
• rich
• ebooklib (EPUB)
• pypdf (PDF)

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests welcome. Please do not commit personal paths, credentials, or private notes.