LinePilot Add to Chrome

Free extension for Chrome

Keep your place on every line.

LinePilot glides a soft pointer through the text at the pace you set. Your eyes get one steady thing to follow, so you drift less, re-read less, and get through long articles calmly.

Add to Chrome How it works
  • Free
  • No account
  • Nothing you read leaves your browser

Live demo

Reading slows down when you lose your place. You drift to the wrong line, skip back, and read the same sentence twice. LinePilot gives your eyes one steady thing to follow.

Long words get a little more time, and full stops get a short breath, so the pace feels natural. Each line fades once you've finished it, so you always know where you left off.

Pointer
Color
Click the text, then try Space, ← → and ↑ ↓. Click any word to move there. Tap any word to move the pointer there. LinePilot itself runs in Chrome on a computer.

Natural rhythm

Paced the way people read

A metronome gives every word the same time. LinePilot gives short words less, long words more, a short pause at a comma and a longer one at a full stop. The average still matches the speed you choose, anywhere from 50 to 600 words per minute.

You can switch this off in settings for a strictly even beat.

  1. Short223 ms
  2. words223 ms
  3. fly,267 ms
  4. extraordinary300 ms
  5. ones223 ms
  6. linger,300 ms
  7. and189 ms
  8. a189 ms
  9. full223 ms
  10. stop223 ms
  11. gives223 ms
  12. you189 ms
  13. a189 ms
  14. breath.401 ms
How long each word stays under the pointer at 250 wpm. The dashed line is a metronome's even 240 ms; the whole sentence takes the same 3.4 seconds either way.

What it does

Made for long reads on any site

A pointer that glides

A soft highlight or a thin underline eases from word to word and slides back to the start of each line. On dark pages it adjusts so it stays visible.

Read text fades

Each line turns gray once you've finished it. Your eyes stay ahead, and when you come back you can see exactly where you stopped.

Jump by sentence

Go back to re-read a sentence or skip ahead to the next one. It recognizes sentence ends in many languages, even with citation marks like [1].

←→

Starts where you're looking

LinePilot finds the article, skips menus, sidebars and sticky headers, and begins at the first line you can see. Or click a word first to start there.

Scrolls like turning a page

When the line reaches the lower part of the window, one smooth scroll brings it back up. Scroll yourself and it waits for you.

Push pace, if you want it

An optional training mode raises your speed by a few words per minute at a time while you read, so you can build up gradually.

Getting started

Three steps, about a minute

  1. Add LinePilot to Chrome

    Install it from the Chrome Web Store. There's nothing to sign up for.

  2. Open something long

    An article, a blog post, documentation. Scroll to where you want to begin, or click the word to start from.

  3. Start reading

    Press ⌃⇧L on Mac or Alt + L on Windows, Linux and ChromeOS. You can also click the LinePilot icon and press play.

While you read

Pause or resume
Space
Previous or next sentence
←→
Slower or faster, 20 wpm a step
↓↑
Stop
Esc
Start from a word
Alt or ⌥ + click
Move the pointer
Click any word

Privacy

Your reading stays on your computer

LinePilot runs entirely inside Chrome. It never sends the pages you read, or anything about them, anywhere.

Read the privacy policy
  • No account and no sign-in
  • No analytics, ads or tracking
  • Works offline; it makes no network requests
  • Settings are saved in Chrome on this device

Try it on the next long article you open.

Add to Chrome

Works in Chrome on desktop. Free, with no account.