Steno Keyboard and Steno Keyboard Pocket bring stenography to the iPad and iPhone. No steno machine required.

See it working

The two input modes: Translate sends on a key press, lift to send for the iPad fires when your fingers leave the board.

A four key chord held on the Steno Keyboard in its light theme, with the Translate
key highlighted and the word Dogs written above. — The light theme, with traditional rounded keys.

Theme & Color: ten board themes and a separate highlight color, previewed live on the real board in light or dark.

Looking a word up from inside the keyboard, without switching apps.

Hold Lookup after writing a word and every outline that writes it is listed, shortest first, with the one you used checked.

Writing a stroke with no translation, then defining it in place.

Sizing the board: input mode, finger zones, lift timing, key widths.

The size slider drives the real keyboard inside a device outline, so you see the size you picked before leaving Settings.

Downloading a starter dictionary and setting the priority order. Bring your own instead if you have one: Plover format JSON or RTF/CRE files from most CAT software import directly.

The full Lookup screen, searching every enabled dictionary in priority order.

Adding an entry in the app, including when the outline is already taken.

What it is

Stenography is how court reporters and captioners write at speaking speed. Instead of one key per letter, you press a chord of keys together and a dictionary translates it into a word, a phrase, or a piece of punctuation. Steno Keyboard is a custom keyboard that does this anywhere you can type on iOS. A rolling buffer means phrases spanning several strokes translate correctly, with undo.

Requirements

iPhone or iPad running iOS 15 or later. A steno dictionary, which the app can download for you or which you can import yourself.

New to stenography? The support page walks through turning the keyboard on, adding a dictionary, and writing your first chord.

Steno Keyboard is built on the open steno community. The community and resources page points to Plover and the Open Steno Project, where other writers gather, and the makers selling real steno keyboards.