RapidReader High Speed Tips

The Fastest Way to Get Up to Speed

The most efficient way to truly accelerate your reading speed with RapidReader may not be exactly what you'd think. It's not simply a matter of going incrementally faster a little bit at a time. As logical as that may seem what really happens is that you hit a "wall" that you assume you can't go beyond. As you start to use RapidReader you'll become familiar with the concept of "flooding". Essentially it's a process of pushing well past what you thought of as your comfort level then moving back a little bit. By doing this you quickly become comfortable with reading speeds that might have seemed overwhelming just a minute earlier. Flooding teaches you that you can truly comprehend at very high speeds by simply "watching" the words instead of "sounding them out". That's the key to multiplying your reading speed instantly. In minutes your perception of speed changes and expands. This kind of experience is part of almost all athletic training. It's even part of learning to drive a car or ride a bicycle. The same principle works for your reading ability as well. It's a powerful feeling to go beyond where you thought you could go.

To learn how to do this efficiently look at "What's in the Tutorial" that comes with your download or how to create your own "Flooding" technique. Once you learn the technique you may want to use it periodically as a "booster shot".

What's in the Tutorial?

The tutorial contains a well researched flooding sequence to multiply your reading speed in a couple of minutes. While you're increasing your speed you're also seeing key information about RapidReader's features and functions. By the end of the tutorial you'll be getting around in RapidReader like a pro. The tutorial is available at installation or you can launch it from the help file when ever you wish.

Build a "Do it Yourself" Flooding Sequence.

If you don't want to take the tutorial or simply want a periodic "warm up" you can build your own flooding example from any material you choose. Just follow the instructions HERE and save the result somewhere handy as a RapidReader (.r2d) file.

Streamline Your Information Tasks by Saving Web Pages in RapidReader Format

If you're doing on-line research or simply come across some web pages of interest, you can save the page as a RapidReader file to your machine. This gives you two advantages.

1) you can do all of your "collecting" and then sit back and read them offline with RapidReader speed whenever you wish.

2) You can add notes, excerpt highlites and even send the RapidReader file to a friend with your markup intact.

When you open a page in RapidReader, all you have to do is select "Save As .r2d" from the menu and pick a destination folder.

Using RapidReader with Firefox, Safari, Google and Opera Browsers

In Internet Explorer RapidReader adds a button to the tool bar when you install it. However RR can be used with any browser by:

Selecting the text you wish
Copying it (CTRL+C)
Launching RapidReader
Pasting (CTRL+V)

There are a couple of ways to expedite this process particularly if you are reading multiple pages in a session.

1) When you're done reading leave RapidReader open and minimize it.
Select/Copy the next document or page you want to read. Then just click to maximize RR and Paste (CTRL+V). The new entry will replace the previous text automatically.

2) Choose the "printer friendly" version of a page and then Select All (CTRL+A) and copy. Paste into RapidReader as above. This will leave content only and remove navigation and advertising elements.

3) Use the free "Readability" Bookmarklet from Arc90 Labs to remove the clutter on the web page and then follow the process for "printer friendly" above.

Using Readability and RapidReader to Speed Through On-Line Journal Articles

If you're a student or a professional the need to read learned journals is a part of your career. Recently due to the efforts of institutions like Stanford University and MIT and local public libraries many of these have become available for free on-line. The challenge however of reading them quickly and efficiently remains. The combination of the Readability bookmarklet and RapidReader can reduce your reading time literally to a fraction of what you'd otherwise spend.

Here's how to use this powerful combination:

You can download Readability HERE

Below is the address for the Stanford "Highwire" project which lists most online medical and scientific journals. Some are these are subscription or fee based, others are free.
http://highwire.stanford.edu

 

Formatting E-books with Readability for RapidReading

There are a number of resources for free electronic books online. For instance the Gutenberg Project has more than 30,000 books of all kinds for free download. Other libraries such as the University of Pennsylvania and UCLA also have broad selections of books. Many of these however are not ideally formatted for RapidReader and require some minor adjustments for smooth reading at high speed. The Readability bookmarklet from Arc90 Labs can be used to pre-format these books before you open them in RapidReader. This means that you can have these books available to you on your computer or mobile for reading at many times the average rate.

To use Readabilty and RapidReader together

If you wish to convert a book for reading on a mobile select "Export for Mobile" under FILE on the RapidReader menubar.

You can download Readability HERE

Tips for opening documents with RapidReader 6.0 for Mac.

Create an alias of RapidReader from your applications folder and place it on the desktop for easy access. Or add it to the Dock.

MS Word for Mac:
RapidReader for Mac includes direct integration into MS Word for Mac. It will typically place a button on a separate tool bar to the right of the Word tool bar. Clicking on this button will convert the entire document to RR format.

Occasionally depending on your configuration, the button may not automatically load on the tool bar and you will have to enable it by..

1) SELECT> TOOLS on the MS Word Menu bar
2) In the drop down menu SELECT>TEMPLATES AND ADD-INS
3) SELECT> RapidReaderAddin.dot
4) CLICK>ADD

For more information please check your Word for Mac help files

PLEASE NOTE: For efficiency, if you are planning to read multiple documents you don't need to close and re launch RapidReader for each document. Clicking on the RR Button in Word will will replace the previous contents as will Copy / Paste in for web pages and other document types.

For other document types:
Text documents:

1) "drag and drop" the document.txt icon onto the RapidReader icon.
2) The file will then open in RapidReader.

For RTF documents:
RapidReader will not natively open the .rtf format.

1) Open the rtf file and then select all (CMD+A)
2) Copy (CMD+C)
3) Launch RapidReader then
4) Paste (CMD+V)

The rtf file will open in RapidReader

Opening PDF files in RapidReader for Mac

As of yet there is no RapidReader PRO version available for Mac. The PRO version includes an artificial intelligence component that analyses a PDF and extracts the text. At this time this is available only in RR PRO Win. However for RapidReader for Mac there is a "work-around" that should yield satisfactory results.

To format a PDF for RapidReader

 

For convenience you may want to save the file in RapidReader format.

RapidReader for Web Pages on a Mac

RapidReader does provide a "Service" within Safari. Click on SAFARI > Services > RapidReader. However due to the nature of the architecture of Mac you will still have to select the text you wish to read before you select Service.

It may be more efficient to use the following procedure which can also be used with any browser; Firefox, Camino et al.

NOTE: We recommend the Readabilty bookmarklet for easy formatting of web pages for RapidReader or alternatively the "printer friendly" version of the page if it is available. Both of these will make it easier to select the text of the story and avoid importing navigation etc into RR.

For Printer Friendly

1) Open the web page file and then select all (CMD+A)
2) Copy (CMD+C)
3) Launch RapidReader then
4) Paste (CMD+V)

The text of the page will open in RapidReader

For Standard Web Pages.

1) Open the web page file and then CLICK and DRAG to select the text you wish to read.
2) Copy (CMD+C)
3) Launch RapidReader then
4) Paste (CMD+V)

The text you selected will open in RapidReader

You can save any document imported into RapidReader for offline reading. This will also save any Notes and Highlites you've made in the document.

1) Click FILE > Save As

For more information about Readability from Arc90 Labs please click HERE