How fast do stenographers type?

Stenographers are tested at 225 words per minute for courtroom testimony in the United States. The national Registered Professional Reporter test sets that speed, and a candidate must also reach 95 percent accuracy ^{1 2}. Candidates write on a stenotype, which has only 22 keys ³ and lets the writer press several at once ⁴. Our stenography and shorthand guide covers the machine and its history.

Certification sets 225 words per minute for testimony

The Registered Professional Reporter credential tests three speeds: 180, 200 and 225 words per minute. A candidate must reach 95 percent accuracy on each one ¹. The 225 leg is the testimony test, and it is the top of the three. The 225 figure is a test benchmark, not a rule for every court reporting job.

The stenotype has 22 keys, and the writer presses several at once

A stenotype has 22 keys ³. The writer presses several of them together, and that combined press is called a chord. A chord can spell out whole syllables, words and phrases with a single hand motion ⁵.

That is why the numbers look high. A 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 chord is what lifts the count, and it is also why learning steno takes time: each chord is a separate pattern to memorize.

Records sit well above the 225 standard

Speed records are higher than the certification bar. Guinness World Records lists Mark Kislingbury of Houston at 360 words per minute, with 97.23 percent accuracy, at the NCRA's 2004 summer convention ⁶. The NCRA later reported a faster run: in March 2022 he wrote 370 words in one minute at 95.4 percent accuracy ⁷.

The two figures come with different accuracy results and different reporting, so compare them with care. Neither is an average. Each is a single record attempt.

Ordinary typists are far slower than court reporters

In a 2018 study of 136 million keystrokes from an online typing test, the average typist wrote 51.56 words per minute ⁸. The testimony standard is about 4.4 times that average ⁹.

The online average describes people who took that test, not everyone at a desk. Our guide to how typing speed is measured explains how those averages are counted.

It depends on accuracy and on which test you mean

Speed without accuracy means little. The certification standard is 95 percent accuracy on every leg ², so a fast result with more errors does not count toward the credential. The records also come with their own accuracy figures, so a speed without one cannot be compared with them.

In practice there are three different numbers. The certification speed is 225 words per minute at 95 percent for court testimony. The records are single attempts, at 360 and 370 words per minute ^{6 7}. Other steno work, such as live captioning, has its own requirements, and this page does not give a figure for them. For a general view of how typists compare, see our good typing speed guide.

What to do if you want to measure your own speed

1. Find the standard you are measured against. For US court reporting, start with the RPR.
2. Time yourself on read or dictated passages. Use the same passage length as the test.
3. Count errors at the same time. Report net speed at 95 percent accuracy or better, not gross speed alone. Our words per minute entry defines the terms.
4. Compare only like with like. A chord speed, a typing test and a one-minute record are three different measures.

Read next

• For pen systems, read how fast is shorthand writing.
• For the training timeline, read how long it takes to learn stenography.
• To use steno on an ordinary computer, read can you use stenography instead of a regular keyboard.
• For the wider typing picture, read the fastest typing speed on record.