What bionic reading actually does
Bold the first few letters of every word, leave the rest normal, and you get bionic reading. The idea is that those bold “anchors” give your eyes a fixation point per word, so you skim faster and your brain fills in the unbolded part on its own.
Paste a paragraph, pick how aggressive the bolding gets, and read it right there on the page. Crank the font size up if you want. The bold prefix grows or shrinks as you change the fixation setting, so you can find a level that feels right instead of being stuck with one fixed look.
Using the converter
Three steps. Drop your text in the left box. Choose a fixation strength: low bolds about a third of each word, medium roughly half, high closer to two-thirds. The reading panel on the right updates live as you type or switch settings.
The size slider only changes the preview, not your source text. Handy if you’re testing how the effect reads at, say, 24px versus 14px. Short words behave sensibly too. A one-letter word like “a” stays as is, and leading quotes or brackets never get bolded, so "hello bolds the h, not the quote mark.
When you like the result, hit Copy as HTML. That copies the marked-up version with <strong> tags around each bold prefix, which you can paste into an email, a CMS, a Notion page, or anywhere that accepts basic HTML formatting.
Does it really make you read faster?
Honest answer: the evidence is mixed. Bionic Reading went viral around 2022, and the company behind it claims real focus benefits. But independent studies haven’t backed up the speed claims cleanly.
A 2022 study run with Reading University and a few follow-ups found no reliable increase in reading speed, and some readers were actually a touch slower. Comprehension didn’t improve in any consistent way either. So if you came here expecting a guaranteed reading-speed hack, temper that.
Here’s the nuance, though. “No average effect” doesn’t mean “no effect for anyone.” Plenty of people, especially folks with ADHD or who struggle to keep their place in dense text, report that the bold anchors genuinely help them stay locked in. That’s a subjective, individual thing. The only way to know which camp you’re in is to try it on text you’d actually read and see if it sticks.
Where people use it
- Long-form articles or documentation they keep bouncing off of
- Study notes and textbook passages, where staying on the line matters
- Reading on a phone, where the bold gives small text a bit more structure
- Accessibility experiments for readers who find plain blocks of text fatiguing
It’s not a fit for everything. Code, tables, and anything where exact characters matter should stay plain. And some readers find the constant bolding distracting rather than helpful, which is completely valid.
Common questions
What does “fixation strength” change?
How much of each word gets bolded. Low bolds roughly the first third, medium about half, high closer to two-thirds. Longer words get a longer bold prefix, and there’s always at least one normal character at the end so the contrast stays visible.
Is bionic reading proven to work?
Not really, no. Marketing claims aside, peer-reviewed studies haven’t shown a reliable speed or comprehension boost. Some individuals still find it helpful for focus, so it’s worth a personal test even if the group data is flat.
Can I paste the formatted text into Word or Gmail?
Yep. The Copy as HTML button gives you <strong>-tagged markup. Gmail’s compose window and most rich-text editors keep the bold when you paste. Word can be hit or miss depending on how you paste, so check the result.
Does my text get uploaded anywhere?
No. Everything runs in your browser with plain JavaScript. Your text never leaves the tab, and nothing is stored or sent to a server.
Why isn’t the whole first half of every word bold?
Because over-bolding kills the effect. If too much of each word is heavy, your eye loses the anchor and the page just looks loud. The converter caps the bold so a normal tail always remains, which is what creates the guiding contrast.
Can I use this for dyslexia?
Some people with dyslexia like it, but it’s not a treatment and results vary a lot. If you or someone you’re helping finds the bold anchors easier to track, great. If it feels worse, that’s normal too. Pair it with the Reading Level Tester if you also want to gauge how hard the text itself is.