Stenography and Shorthand: Writing at 225 WPM

Stenographers press several keys at once on a stenotype, so one chord can produce a whole syllable, word or phrase instead of a single letter ¹. The US court reporting credential, the Registered Professional Reporter (RPR), tests testimony at 225 words per minute, with 95 percent accuracy ². Pen shorthand certification standards sit far lower, near 100 words per minute ³. This guide covers how the machine works, how fast the best writers have been measured, what it takes to learn, and how open-source steno and speech recognition fit in. It is part of our typing speed guide.

Stenographers press keys as chords, so one stroke can write a whole word

A stenotype has 22 keys ⁴. That is far fewer than a conventional keyboard has, and the writer presses several of them together ⁵. That press is called a chord. Chorded writing can spell out whole syllables, words and phrases with a single hand motion ¹.

That is why the speed numbers look so high, and how fast stenographers type gives the short answer. A normal keyboard needs one press per letter, so a five-letter word takes at least five presses. A chord can cover the same word in one stroke. The machine's printout has 22 columns, one for each key ⁴.

Chording also makes steno hard to learn. A chord has to be learned as a unit, so the writer must memorize which combination of keys means which sound, syllable or word. That map is a separate skill from typing, and ordinary typing practice does not build it. The section on learning time below covers how long the map takes to master.

The RPR credential requires 225 words per minute for testimony at 95 percent accuracy

In the United States, court reporters can earn the Registered Professional Reporter (RPR) credential from the National Court Reporters Association (NCRA). Its skills test has three speed legs, at 180, 200 and 225 words per minute, and each leg requires 95 percent accuracy ². The 225 leg covers testimony, which is the highest of the three speeds.

The table puts the RPR speed beside other reference points, so you can see how far it sits above ordinary typing and speech.

The testimony standard is 4.4 times the average typing speed ⁹. Two cautions apply. The typing average comes from one online test, so it describes the people who took that test, not everyone at a desk. The speaking figure is a round range, not a measured result of that study, and speakers differ. Our guides to speaking speed and speaking vs typing speed cover both in more depth.

The RPR is the credential behind the 225 figure. Requirements differ by state and by employer, so check the rules where you plan to work.

The fastest recorded steno speed is above 350 words per minute

Speed records sit at the top of the scale, not at the average. The Guinness World Records entry for realtime stenotype writing names Mark Kislingbury of Houston, who wrote 360 words per minute with 97.23 percent accuracy at the NCRA's 2004 summer convention ⁸. That speed is about seven times the average typing speed ¹⁰.

Pen shorthand has a record as well. The record for fast writing in Pitman shorthand is 350 words per minute, set in a two-minute test by Nathan Behrin in 1922 ¹¹. A two-minute burst is a different test from sustained writing, and the source does not give an accuracy standard for it.

Two cautions apply to both records. First, each is a single attempt rather than an average. Second, the Guinness figure is tied to its stated accuracy, so a speed without an accuracy figure is not comparable with it. Speed figures in general should come with an accuracy standard or a test length. Our guide to how typing speed is measured explains the counting rules, and the words per minute term defines the unit. The chart below puts the records beside the certification and typing numbers.

Pen shorthand certification standards sit near 100 words per minute, far below steno

Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that makes writing faster than longhand ¹². Isaac Pitman published Stenographic Sound-Hand in 1837, which introduced Pitman shorthand ¹³. John Robert Gregg first published his system in 1888, and in the United States Gregg largely superseded Pitman ¹⁴. Both are pen systems, in which the writer forms symbols on paper.

The certification standards for pen shorthand sit far below steno. The table lists the documented figures, including the Pitman record. For the short answer, see how fast shorthand writing is.

Alphabetic systems trade speed for ease of learning. They write sounds with letters and need only a fraction of the time that stenographic systems take to reach a useful speed ¹⁵. Steno is the system that reaches the highest speeds in this guide, and it asks the most of the learner.

For a definition of the term, see shorthand. The guide to the history of dictation places these systems among the earlier ways that speech was captured.

The basics of steno take two to four years to learn, and we found no reliable completion rate

Learning the basic skills of a stenographic court reporter typically takes two to four years ¹⁶. That range covers the basics, not a job-ready speed. It is an encyclopedia summary of the field rather than a national survey, and programs differ in length and format. A learner's real timeline depends on how many hours a week they practice and how much of that practice is spent on the key map.

Many readers will see the claim that most students who start steno never finish. Some trade and advocacy sources publish dropout figures, but we found no rigorous national study to check them, so this guide does not repeat a number. If you are weighing a program, ask the school for its graduation and certification rates. Our question page on how long it takes to learn stenography goes through the same evidence.

When you compare programs, ask a few direct questions. Does the course train you to the speeds of the exam you plan to take? Does it give you timed passages and accuracy checks, not only lessons? Does it tell you how many students finish and how long they took? A school that answers those questions with figures is easier to judge than one that answers with a testimonial.

A practical route has three stages. First, learn the key map until you can write single words reliably. Second, build speed on passages you have already read, so that your attention goes to the chords rather than the words. Third, measure accuracy at the exact speed you need, because the certification standard requires both at once. Our guide to typing speed for jobs shows how speed targets are set for other roles, and how to type faster covers the practice habits that carry over.

Open-source steno brings chorded typing to ordinary computers

Plover is open-source software that turns a computer into a stenography engine. The project describes it as a desktop application that lets anyone use stenography to write on a computer, "up to speeds of 200WPM and beyond" ¹⁷. That speed is the project's own claim. The number depends on the writer's practice and hardware, so treat it as a claim about what is possible, not a typical result.

Plover runs on Windows, Linux and Mac, according to its repository ¹⁸. Its main repository carries the GNU General Public License, version 2 ¹⁹. Check the license of the version you install.

Plover needs input that registers several keys at once, which a stenotype provides by design. A standard keyboard may or may not, and the answer depends on the keyboard. Check the hardware notes in the project's documentation before you buy anything, and read the rollover typing term for what the keyboard must do. Our question page on steno for everyday typing covers the practical trade-offs.

Because Plover is open source, anyone can read its code and run it on a computer they already own. That makes it a low-cost way to try chording. Its speed figure is still the project's own claim, so measure your own speed against a passage before you set a goal.

Speech recognition now competes with stenographers for captions and records

Stenographers provide live captions through CART, which stands for Communication Access Realtime Translation. Voice writing is a transcription method that also covers CART and closed captioning ²⁰. Accuracy is the measure that matters for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. The authors of a 2024 University of Michigan paper state that CART captioning accuracy can considerably decline, which affects how well those viewers follow the content ²¹.

Speech recognition is the main rival. The same paper says that existing approaches for improving automatic speech recognition still fail to match trained CART captioners ²². It is a preliminary, work-in-progress study, so its numbers are not a settled measure. A separate study, covered below, points the same way.

A separate study measured eleven common speech recognition services on university lectures ²³. Its authors conclude that, despite recent improvements, common services lack reliability in accuracy ²⁴. It also found significantly lower quality for streaming recognition, which is the mode used for live events ²⁵. That study is a preprint, and it tested lectures, so a courtroom or a phone call may behave differently.

Voice writing sits between the two. A trained writer repeats speech into a recognizer through a stenomask, a device with a padded, soundproof enclosure and an internal microphone ²⁶. A court reporting company says a trained voice writer can sustain accuracy above 95 percent at speeds above 180 words per minute ²⁷. That is a vendor claim with no independent test linked. The voice writing term covers how the method works.

The table below sets out where each caption method stands on the evidence in this guide.

The evidence points to a split. Speech recognition is automatic, and the studies here give trained human captioners the accuracy edge. For a deeper look at captions, see captions and subtitles. For how speech recognition accuracy is scored, see word error rate, and for the access rights and needs behind captioning, see speech to text for deaf and hard-of-hearing people.

For most writers, dictation is faster than learning steno

Steno is a specialist skill, and most writers do not need it. For ordinary drafting, speaking is far faster than typing. In a controlled study on an iPhone, English text entered by speech reached 153 words per minute, against 52 words per minute on the built-in keyboard ^{29 30}. The study counted finished text, including time spent on corrections. It used short messages read in a quiet room, and the study used a 2016 recognizer, so current dictation may be faster.

Dictation does not require a chorded keyboard, years of training or a certificate. It requires a microphone and the habit of composing a sentence before you say it. Yap, which we make, is an on-device dictation app for Mac and Windows. It is one option among several, and the built-in tools on your computer or phone may be enough. Our guide to what dictation is explains the basics, and the speaking vs typing guide shows the research behind the gap.

If you want more speed without learning a new machine, the cheapest gains usually come from typing less. Touch typing removes the hunt for keys, and text expanders and autocomplete cut the number of keys you press for phrases you repeat. Dictation is the step beyond those, and it asks for a different habit rather than a different keyboard.

Steno remains the right tool for a verbatim record that must be produced live, at high accuracy, by a trained person. For a court record, the RPR testimony standard of 225 words per minute at 95 percent accuracy is the reference ². For a dictated draft, the speed of speech is the advantage. For the wider picture of how writing speed is measured, see writing speed.