# Tutorial 58 — Reading pace: the chip + the preview
*Inkhaven 1.2.18+*
Two small 1.2.18 features help you feel how a *reader*
experiences your prose, not just how it looks on the
editing screen: a status-bar **reading-time chip** and a
**reader-pace preview** teleprompter.
Both read at `editor.reading_wpm` (default 200 — the
common silent-reading average; ~150 is a typical
audiobook narration pace).
```hjson
{
editor: {
reading_time_chip: true // default false
reading_wpm: 200 // default 200
}
}
```
## The reading-time chip
Turn it on with `editor.reading_time_chip: true`. A
chip appears in the status bar showing the current
book's read-aloud length + the time remaining from the
open paragraph to the book's end:
```text
… [POV: Helena] [12C·8P·3A] 📖 18m / 4h18m …
└─ remaining ─┘ └ total ┘
```
* **total** — the whole book at `reading_wpm`. A quick
proxy for audiobook length before you commit to a
full `inkhaven audiobook` synthesis run.
* **remaining** — from the open paragraph (inclusive) to
the book's end. Walk through the manuscript and watch
it count down.
The chip is off by default — the status bar is already
busy — so opt in when the metric is useful (e.g. when
you're targeting a specific audiobook length or a
magazine word budget).
It's cheap to compute: one linear walk of the current
book's paragraphs, summing the cached per-paragraph word
counts (the 1.2.18 hierarchy index keeps it O(n), so it
stays snappy even on a 10K-paragraph project).
## The reader-pace preview
`Ctrl+B Shift+E` (in the editor) opens a teleprompter
that advances a highlight word-by-word through the open
paragraph at `reading_wpm`:
```text
┌ Reader pace ──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ Helena paused at the threshold, listening for │
│ the sound of [footsteps] below. Marcus said │
│ nothing for a long moment, then nodded once… │
│ │
│ 14/210 · 58s left @ 200 wpm · Space pause · ←→ │
│ step · r restart · Esc close │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
```
Already-read words dim, the current word is highlighted,
upcoming words are normal. The highlight moves at
reading speed — so you *experience* the prose the way a
reader will, instead of skimming it at editing-glance
speed.
### Why bother?
Pacing problems hide when you read your own work fast.
A sentence that drags, a beat that lands too abruptly, a
paragraph that's secretly twice as long as it feels —
these surface when the words arrive at a reader's
tempo. It's the prose equivalent of reading aloud,
without needing to read aloud.
### Controls
| `Space` | Pause / resume |
| `→` | Step the highlight forward one word |
| `←` | Step the highlight back one word |
| `r` | Restart from the top |
| `Esc` | Close |
The elapsed time carries across pause/resume cycles, so
you can stop to fix a clunky sentence and pick up where
you left off.
The preview reads clean prose — the same markup-stripping
pass the audiobook export uses, so headings, emphasis
markers, and footnotes don't interrupt the flow.
## Tuning the pace
`reading_wpm` drives both features (and the per-chapter
timing in the audiobook export). Pick the rate that
matches what you're checking:
* **200** — silent reading (e-book, print).
* **150** — audiobook narration.
* **300** — a skim-reader / fast reader.
## See also
* [Tutorial 57 — Reader-experience exports](57-reader-experience-exports.md)
— the ePub + audiobook exports the reading-time
estimates pair with.
* `Documentation/RELEASE_NOTES/1.2.18.md` — R.3 + R.4
implementation log.