Reading Shouldn't Be a Struggle: How Type Shifter Helps With Dyslexia and ADHD

The Reality of Reading With Dyslexia

Dyslexia isn't about intelligence. It's a neurological difference in how the brain processes written language. For many dyslexic readers, letters can appear to swap places, flip upside down, or blur together. The letters b, d, p, and q are notorious offenders because they're essentially the same shape rotated or mirrored.

Standard fonts make this harder than it needs to be. Most typefaces are designed to look aesthetically pleasing, not to be maximally distinguishable. Letters like "b" and "d" in common fonts like Arial or Times New Roman are near-perfect mirror images. That's fine for neurotypical readers, but for someone with dyslexia it means constant extra effort to tell them apart.

Line tracking is another challenge. Dense blocks of text with tight line spacing can cause "visual crowding," where letters and words overlap in the reader's perception. The result? Slower reading, more re-reading, and significantly more mental fatigue.

How OpenDyslexic Font Helps

Type Shifter includes OpenDyslexic, a free and open-source typeface specifically designed to reduce the reading difficulties caused by dyslexia. It takes a different approach from standard fonts in several important ways.

Weighted bottoms

Each letter in OpenDyslexic has a heavier bottom. Think of it like adding a weight to the base of each character. This "anchors" the letter visually and makes it much harder for your brain to flip or rotate it. A "b" stays a "b" because the heavy part is always at the bottom.

Unique letter shapes

The commonly confused letter pairs (b/d, p/q, m/w) have been given distinct shapes so they're harder to mix up. Unlike standard fonts where these letters are geometric mirrors of each other, OpenDyslexic makes each one genuinely different.

Wider spacing

Letters and words have more breathing room, which reduces visual crowding. This extra space gives your eyes clear boundaries between characters and helps with line tracking.

The Reality of Reading With ADHD

ADHD affects reading in a completely different way from dyslexia. The letters are fine. The problem is focus. Your eyes land on a word, but your mind has already wandered to something else. You reach the end of a paragraph and realise you haven't actually absorbed any of it.

Long, unbroken walls of text are especially difficult. Without visual variety or landmarks, there's nothing to grab your attention and pull it back to the page. Traditional formatting treats every paragraph the same way, which gives an ADHD brain nothing to anchor on.

How Bionic Reading Helps With Focus

This is where Bionic Reading becomes genuinely useful for ADHD readers. By bolding the first few letters of every word, it creates a constant stream of visual landmarks throughout the text. Your eyes have something specific to land on with every single word.

Instead of your gaze drifting off into the middle of a sentence, the bold fragments pull your attention forward like stepping stones across a stream. Each one says "look here next." For many ADHD readers, this is the difference between finishing a page and re-reading the same paragraph four times.

Type Shifter lets you adjust Bionic Reading intensity from 5% to 45%. Most ADHD users find the 25% to 35% range works well, because the visual anchors are strong enough to hold attention without making the text feel cluttered.

The Dyslexia Friendly Template

Type Shifter includes a template called Dyslexia Friendly that combines multiple accessibility features in one click. When you select it, the app automatically applies:

• OpenDyslexic font for both headings and body text
• Increased line spacing to reduce visual crowding
• Wider letter spacing for clearer character boundaries
• Bionic Reading turned on for additional fixation support
• Clean, uncluttered layout with generous margins

This gives you a complete accessibility setup without having to adjust each setting individually. Of course, you can still fine-tune any of these settings after applying the template. Want Bionic Reading at a different intensity? Just move the slider. Prefer a different font size? Adjust it in the customisation panel.

Dark Mode: Less Strain, Better Focus

Bright white backgrounds can cause significant visual stress, especially for people with dyslexia or sensory sensitivities that often accompany ADHD. The high contrast between stark white backgrounds and black text can trigger a "washout" effect where text becomes harder to read, not easier.

Type Shifter offers both a dark app theme (for using the app itself) and dark mode output (for the documents you export). Dark mode output displays light text on a dark background, which:

• Reduces overall glare and visual fatigue
• Makes extended reading sessions more comfortable
• Emits less blue light, which may help if you read in the evening
• Provides a calmer visual environment that's less likely to trigger sensory overload

Dark mode is preserved when you export to HTML and EPUB, so your accessibility settings travel with the document.

Your Text Stays Private

Many people with dyslexia and ADHD are processing personal documents, medical letters, school assignments, or work reports. You shouldn't have to upload sensitive material to some company's server just to make it readable.

Type Shifter processes everything locally on your device. Your text is never uploaded, never transmitted, and never stored anywhere outside your own computer. There are no analytics, no tracking, and no data collection. The desktop app works completely offline.

This matters particularly for students working with exam materials, employees reading confidential documents, or anyone who simply values their privacy.

Getting Started

If you're reading this because traditional text gives you trouble, here's the quickest path to something better:

1. Open Type Shifter (the free web version or the Windows desktop app)
2. Select the Dyslexia Friendly template from the dropdown
3. Paste in your text or upload your document (TXT, DOCX, PDF, EPUB, HTML, RTF, or Markdown)
4. Click "SHIFT MY TEXT"
5. Adjust the Bionic Reading intensity until it feels right for you
6. Export as PDF, DOCX, EPUB, or HTML to read anywhere

The 14-day free trial includes every feature with no restrictions. You get all 26 templates, 113+ fonts, all import and export formats, and full Bionic Reading controls. No credit card needed.