- 5/22/2026
- Updated 5/22/2026
Steno Timed Modes: Brief Form, Chord Capture, and Readback Compared
Three 30s/60s timed modes on Practice → Steno—TFBF strokes, chord capture, and readback—share Steno WPM but train different skills. Pick the right benchmark.
Brief form (TFBF)
English prompt in, stroke notation out. This is the classic “write the brief” drill and maps to Units 4–5 on the lesson ladder. Best for building outline recall from vocabulary you already met in chords.
Interactive Practice
Try this 1 minute tool right here
Practice in the panel below—the same timed test as on the dedicated test page.
Prefer a full-screen run? Open 1 minute test
Chord capture
Hold machine keys together, release, score. Timed chord mode uses the same capture path as Units 1–3. Best when you want raw simultaneous-press speed without typing slash notation.
Readback
Outline in, English out. Best when your bottleneck is decoding briefs under time pressure—not forming them. All three modes write to the same attempts table with different `timed_input` values for leaderboards and history.
Continue practicing
The in-page typing tool matches this article’s duration preset. Open the full test for other durations and settings, or jump into a drill to target weak keys.