Community and resources

The open steno world

Plover is the free, open source stenography software that made steno accessible to anyone with an N-key rollover keyboard, and it created the JSON dictionary format that Steno Keyboard reads. It is the reason the dictionaries you already own work here at all. It is the work of the Open Steno Project, a community that has spent years making the tools, the dictionaries, and the learning material free for anyone who wants to write.

If steno is new to you, that is where it started, and it is still where most of it lives.

Where the community is

Steno is a small, welcoming world, and most of the people in it are a message away.

• The Open Steno Discord, the busiest place to ask questions and watch people learn in real time.
• r/stenography and r/CourtReporting on Reddit, for longer discussion, questions, and show and tell.
• The Plover wiki, the community's shared reference for dictionaries, theory, and hardware.

Learning to write

Steno is a skill you drill, not a layout you memorize. The community's usual starting point is Typey Type, a free browser tool that teaches the strokes and builds your speed with lessons and progress tracking. The strokes you learn there are the same ones you write on Steno Keyboard.

If you want a real steno keyboard

Steno Keyboard needs no hardware. That is the whole point: a machine in your pocket, nothing to buy, nothing to carry. But steno was born on physical writers, and once it clicks a lot of people want the feel of real keys under all ten fingers. A growing group of independent makers sell affordable hobbyist steno keyboards that work with Plover, and are worth supporting.

• StenoKeyboards, maker of the Uni, the Polyglot, and the Asterisk.
• Stenoob, maker of the Stenoob Pro, a portable USB writer.
• Nolltronics, maker of the Ecosteno, the Multisteno, the Picosteno, and the Leversteno.
• The Stenography Store, maker of the Starboard.
• Chenonetta Creations, maker of the Jarne and the Jarne Blade.

The Plover wiki keeps a fuller, current list of commercially available hobbyist writers if you want to compare more of them.