ZipChord lets you seamlessly combine regular typing with chording and shorthands. Chords let you type whole words by pressing a combination of keys simultaneously. That's what stenographers do and what makes them so fast.
You don't need to learn stenotyping though. Languages obey Zipf's law, so it takes only a few dozen chords to accelerate a huge amount of all your typing. For example, just 32 unique words make up 40% of the whole text of The Lord of the Rings. So even a small number of chords with simple key combinations can make your typing faster and more comfortable.
I could not find any software that supported keyboard shortcuts of more than two keys and regular typing at the same time, so I built ZipChord to make this type of typing possible.
- Chord recognition (also known as chorded entry or chording)
- Shorthands that expand typed abbreviations to full words
- Customizable user dictionaries for chords and shorthands
- Real-time hints about available shortcuts in on-screen display or tooltips
- Automated capitalization and smart spaces around shortcuts and punctuation
- Customizable keyboard mapping with automated detection for different keyboard layouts
- A command menu
Official documentation is available under the Wiki tab.
Download zipchord-install-version.zip or the stand-alone zipchord-exe-version.zip from the latest release.
If you prefer not to use the installer or compiled executable, download the release source archive, extract it anywhere on Windows, install AutoHotkey v1.1, switch the working directory to source, and run zipchord.ahk.
See the Installation page for details.
ZipChord currently works only on Windows because of its dependency on AutoHotkey. Support for MacOS and Linux is planned.
ZipChord adheres to strict privacy and security principles. It does not send your typed content or configuration data anywhere. See more privacy details in the Wiki.
Please see the Wiki pages for information including how to use ZipChord, documentation for the user interface, custom dictionaries, and more.
If you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions, please write a note in the Discussions. You can also report a bug if you run across anything that seems broken or create a feature suggestion under Issues.