textweaver: an interactive guide

textweaver is a reader and writer that speaks for itself. It reads documents aloud and highlights each word as you hear it. It also lets you write in Markdown, with speech feedback as you type.

It is its own project, with roots in star, the Python reader that came before it.

It is one program with two names. textweaver starts the app, with menus and dialogs: you open a document and read or edit it. tw runs the terminal reader, the same reader in a terminal, and the command-line tool: it converts documents, exports audio, looks up citations, and more.

Who it is for

• Students with print disabilities, such as blindness, low vision, or dyslexia.
• Screen-reader users who want a reader that speaks with its own voice, or that works well beside their screen reader.
• Anyone who learns better by listening while they read.

Everything works from the keyboard. Every change is announced. Nothing is shown by color alone.

Pages in this guide

Each page works offline. Each has a full text version of every picture on it.

• Crate map

  Explore the parts of the program, what each one does, and how they depend on each other.

• Speech pipeline

  Step through what happens between pressing Space and hearing a word with its highlight.

• Keyboard

  Search and filter every keyboard shortcut, for the terminal and the GUI.

• Features

  See which features are done, which are partly done, and which are not there yet.

• Reading aids

  Try RSVP, bionic reading, and the reading ruler on sample text.

At a glance

• These numbers come from the page data.

Start here

• Quick start: install textweaver and read your first document.
• Documentation index: every guide and design decision.