Steno layouts and supported languages

A chorded system, or system for short, is a set of rules for Plover that determines the keys, language rules, and default dictionaries in Plover. System Plugins allow Plover to support different machine types and languages other than English.

The American Ward Stone Ireland Stenotype is the default layout in Plover, and what we teach and recommend by default. However, there are many different chorded systems worldwide and some of them have been implemented in Plover.

Note that not all of these systems have been fully implemented; many of them are probably not going to be implemented in Plover, but they have been listed so that you may use them as a reference should you choose to create your own layout/system.

For systems proposed for implementation, check out the issues list.

🔴	Not supported in Plover
🟠	Work in progress, not actively updated or maintained
🟡	Work in progress
🟢	Stable and available for Plover

Stenotype (Ireland)

The default system in Plover. Used internationally for English-language transcription, invented in the United States in 1913.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Plover	Mirabai Knight	English	Phonetic	Built-in	147k entries	Learning Resources
🟢 Lapwing	Aerick	English	Phonetic	Built-in	115k entries	Learning Resources
🟡 Cocoa	Kaoffie	English	Phonetic	Built-in
🟢 LaSalle	Claire Lefebvre-Yelle	French	Phonetic	Built-in	4.2k entries	Non-realtime-capable theory, taught at the École de sténographie judiciaire du Québec
🟡 Pluvier	Vermoot	French	Phonetic			Realtime-capable theory based on LaSalle
🟢 Easy Korean Steno	Peter Park	Korean	Orthographic	Requires plover-python-dictionary	Python Dictionary
🟢 Stanley's	Stanley Sakai	Spanish	Phonetic	Built-in	12k entries
🟢 EO Variant	Eliseo Ocampos	Spanish	Phonetic	plover-spanish-system-eo-variant	71k entries	Developed for the default Plover layout, proposes a syllabic system trading-off a little of abbreviations for consistent rules.
🔴 Marino		Spanish	Phonetic			Spanish theory used in the Argentine Senate, along with Spanish Grandjean.<br>Overview<br>Facebook Page
🟢 Trillo Finnish	Priscilla Trillo	Finnish	Phonetic		49k entries	Textbook (in Finnish)
🟢 Aerick's	Aerick	Vietnamese	Orthographic	Built-in	7k entries	Learning Resources
🟢 plover-vi	user202729	Vietnamese	Orthographic	<code>plover-vi</code>
🟡 Hindi Devanagari	winston	Hindi	Phonetic	N/A	1,404 entries	Home Page

Shavian

Shavian is an alternate alphabet for English; the Shavian Stenotype is a steno system designed to be used on a regular English Stenotype keyboard.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟠 Magpie	Lynn (Ruma)	English (Shavian)	Orthographic			Capable of both Shavian and orthodox (Latin script) translation

Brazilian Stenograph

Brazilian Portuguese system used by Paulo Paniago, published in the textbook Transcrição em Tempo Real: Teoria da Estenotipia compatível com o computador. Also included in some Stenograph machines.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Brazilian Stenograph	Randall Adam Czerenda, Jucineia J. de Andrade Pereira	Portuguese	Phonetic	<code>plover-portuguese</code>	4k entries<br>(available on the Plover Discord)

Czech Stenograph

The Czech layout that comes built-in on some Stenograph machines, including the latest Luminex II.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🔴 Czech Stenograph		Czech	Phonetic

Greek Stenograph

The Greek layout that built into some Stenograph/Stentura machines. Not much is known about this layout.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🔴 Greek Stenograph		Greek	Phonetic

Hebrew Stenograph

The Hebrew layout that built into some Stenograph/Stentura machines. Not much is known about this layout.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🔴 Hebrew Stenograph		Hebrew	Phonetic

Turkish Stenograph

The Turkish layout that comes built-in on some Stenograph machines, including the latest Luminex II.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🔴 Turkish Stenograph		Turkish	Phonetic

Russian Stenograph

The Russian layout that built into some Stenograph/Stentura machines. Not much is known about this layout.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🔴 Russian Stenograph		Russian	Phonetic

Spanish Stenograph

The Spanish layout that comes built-in on some Stenograph machines, including the latest Luminex II.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🔴 Spanish Stenograph		Spanish	Phonetic

German Stenograph

German stenography system for Plover based on the not realtime capable theory of the book "Deutsches System der computerkompatiblen Stenografie". This book can be found in the university library of Dresden and can be read via interlibrary loan. This is also the system that is built into some Stenograph machines.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🔴 German Stenograph		German	Phonetic	<code>plover-german</code>

Regenpfeifer

A German steno system based on a modified English stenotype layout; the -Z key is replaced with -N.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟠 Regenpfeifer	Martin Körner	German	Phonetic	<code>plover-regenpfeifer</code>	219k entries	Dictionary generator

German Syllatype

A syllabic and orthographic system with the mission to be more intuitive and easy to learn.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Syllatype	YAMERO	German	Orthographic	<code>plover-german-syllatype</code>	5k+ entries (syllables)

42triangles' Kana System

Simple kana input system designed to work alongside the English layout to input Japanese without switching steno systems.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 42triangles' Kana System	42triangles	Japanese	Orthographic (Mora + Coda)<br>Romaji-only			Relies on a user IME

Willem's Kana System

A way to write Japanese kana in steno. This is not focused on speed; instead it is meant to be easy to learn for English steno users while still being reasonably efficient. It uses the standard English layout.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Willem's Kana System	Willem Sonke	Japanese	Orthographic (Mora + Coda)<br>Romaji-only	<code>plover-japanese-kana</code>		Relies on a user IME

Danish Hjejle

A Danish steno dictionary based on the standard English layout with slight modifications. While the layout is different from the standard English one, this system does not come with a separate system plugin and uses the default English one, so the tape output might not reflect the actual phonetic value of each stroke.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Hjejle	Lars Rune Præstmark	Danish	Phonetic	Built-in	5k entries

Melani

Italian

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Melani		Italian	Orthographic	<code>plover-melani</code>		Stenolab

Spanish

Spanish system based on the Melani Italian layout, used at MQD.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 MQD Melani	Noelia Ruiz Martínez	Spanish	Phonetic	<code>plover-spanish-mqd</code>	11k entries

Russian

Not much is known about this layout; see this discussion about Russian steno.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🔴 Melani		Russian	Phonetic

Thai Steno

A work-in-progress Thai steno system.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟠 Thai Steno	Parnikkapore	Thai	Phonetic	<code>plover-thsteno</code>

Jade's Dutch System

Dutch steno system that uses a modified version of the English stenotype layout with one extra G key on the left.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Jade's Dutch System	Jade Geels	Dutch	Phonetic	<code>plover-dutch</code>	3.4k entries

Willem's Dutch System

Dutch steno system that uses a modified English stenotype layout. It was made to be as similar as possible to the default English system to minimize confusion between the two; nevertheless, quite a few differences are unavoidable to make the system practical.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Willem's Dutch System	Willem Sonke	Dutch	Phonetic	<code>plover-dutch</code>	7.7k entries

Grandjean

The Grandjean Stenotype was created in 1909; it is also known as the "Continental" layout by some manufacturers and is the preferred phonetic system in France (The orthographic Velotype system is more commonly used for transcribing many TV programs and broadcasts).

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Grandjean		French	Phonetic	<code>plover-grandjean</code>	690k+ entries	GitHub
🔴 Grandjean		Spanish	Phonetic			Asociacion Española de Estenotipistas

Michela

A piano-like keyboard layout, widely used in Italy. The English adaptation is drawn from the "Method for the English language" included in the machine's 1878 American patent.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Michela	Sillabix	Italian	Phonetic	plover-michela	103k entries	Manual
🟡 Michela	Sillabix	English	Phonetic	plover-michela	150 entries	Manual
🟡 Midi4Text	Sillabix	Italian	Orthographic	plover-midi4text	95k entries	Manual
🟡 Midi4Text	Sillabix	English	Orthographic	plover-midi4text	159k entries	Manual

Possum Palantype

The Possum Palantype is a system invented in the UK which was optimized to have readable shorthand notes (the untranslated output). It has more keys than the Ireland layout. It is still used by some STTRs worldwide for writing in English.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Palantype		English	Phonetic	<code>plover-palantype</code>	21k entries	Learn Palantype
🔴 Swedish Palantype		Swedish	Phonetic	<code>plover-swedish-palantype</code>	87k entries	Swedish Theory

Plover German Palantype

German steno system based on the Possum Palantype layout with two additional keys.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 German Palantype		German	Phonetic	<code>plover-palantype-german</code>	85k entries

Ruben Moor's German Palantype

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟡 German Palantype	Ruben Moor	German	Phonetic		100k entries, with plans to expand to 2 million	Tutorial

Trillo

Trillo Russian

A realtime theory for Russian writing based on the Tréal machine.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Trillo Russian	Priscilla Trillo	Russian	Phonetic	<code>plover-russian-trillo</code>	15k entries	Textbook (in mixed English/Russian)

Trillo West Slavic

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Trillo West Slavic	Priscilla Trillo	Czech, Slovak, Polish	Phonetic			Textbook

Yawei

Yawei

Yawei is the most commonly used Chinese stenotype system - it is widely used in Mainland China and Taiwan and uses Pinyin without tones as its main way of inputing characters; learners are required to memorize the positions of homophones based on their position in a frequency-based selection menu for fast character entry.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟡 Yawei (亚伟)		Mandarin (Traditional / Simplified)	Symmetric Toneless Pinyin			Wikipedia

MaaJik

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟡 MaaJik (孖翼)	Sammi de Guzman, Samuel Lo	Cantonese (Traditional)	Symmetric Toneless Jyutping	<code>plover-maajik</code>	314k entries

SanSan

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟠 SanSan (珊々)	Sammi de Guzman	Cantonese (Traditional)	Symmetric Toneless Jyutping			Steno Explainers

TCIM

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟡 TCIM (千鳥詞注)	Quisette C	Mandarin (Traditional)	Symmetric Toneless Zhuyin	<code>plover-tcim</code>

EXun

EXun is a Mandarin steno system used in Mainland China. Not much is known about it other than the fact that it is based on pinyin and uses a structure system for individual character input.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🔴 EXun (E 讯)		Mandarin (Simplified)	Symmetric Toneless Pinyin

Suoheng

Very little is known about the Suoheng system and there are no plans to implement it in Plover.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🔴 Suoheng (索恒)		Mandarin (Simplified)	Symmetric Toneless Pinyin

Korean CAS

The Computer Aided Steno-machine, or CAS, was developed by Korea Steno and features one of the two modern stenography systems for Korean in use today.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟡 CAS		Korean	Orthographic (Initial/Medial/Final) with Briefs	<code>plover-korean</code> ("Korean Modern C")		Theory documentation

Korean Sorizava

Sorizava, developed by a company of the same name, is the second of the modern stenography systems for Korean in use today and the more recent to have been created.

The Sorizava system is not currently under development. There are partial pieces of an implementation in plover-korean but outside of a partial dictionary no theory materials have been obtained to progress further.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🔴 Sorizava		Korean	Orthographic (Initial/Medial/Final) with Briefs	<code>plover-korean</code> ("Korean Modern S")

Sokutaipu

Also known as the Stentura (ステンチュラ) layout. The two sides are symmetric and are each in charge of a syllable, while the thumb is in charge of connecting the two sides; there are also one-side briefs that can be mirrored on the other side or merged.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Sokutaipu (ソクタイプ)		Japanese	Semi-Symmetric 2 Mora + 1 Coda<br>Pure Kana	<code>plover-japanese-sokutaipu</code>	365k entries	Kana table

StenoWord

The preferred Japanese steno system for NHK live captions; the left hand is for consonants and the right hand is for vowels.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 StenoWord (ステノワード)		Japanese	Orthographic 1-Syllable<br>Pure Kana	<code>plover-japanese-stenoword</code>	2.6k entries	Kana table

Frag's Japanese System

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟡 Frag's Japanese System	Frag	Japanese	Symmetric 2 Mora + 2 Coda<br>Stucture-based kanji conversion

A Japanese steno system created for the Georgi machine; the layout is symmetrical to allow the user to type one kanji on'yomi on each side. This system also addresses the problem of inaccurate kanji conversions in existing systems by introducing a way for users to directly input kanji using a structure-based system where most common kanji can be entered in just one stroke.

This is the updated version of the Japanese layout available on TypeyType.

Hachidori

Japanese steno system created to fix all the downsides of Sokutaipu and introduce an intuitive Kanji input system. The system is symmetrical and each side is capable of inputting a full on'yomi; the layout is designed to keep as many keys from the English layout in the same position as possible whilst also maintaining compatibility with as many hobbyist keyboards as possible.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟡 Hachidori (はちどり)	Kaoffie	Japanese	Symmetric 2 Mora + 2 Coda

Velotype

The Velotype is an orthographic system designed to support many European languages. It has also been implemented as a separate app in Qweyboard by kqr.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Velotype		English, Dutch	Orthographic	<code>plover-syllabic-chording</code>		Official website

Jackdaw

An orthographic system based entirely on spelling rather than phonetics, allowing the user to type any word as long as they know the spelling.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Jackdaw		English	Orthographic	<code>plover-jackdaw-alt1</code>		Learn Plover! Jackdaw tutorial

Kinglet

Kinglet was an attempt to create a spelling-based steno system that would have a theoretical speed equal to Plover (about 1 word per stroke). It succeeds in doing this at the cost of a high degree of finger contortion and accuracy in each individual finger, making it difficult to use.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Kinglet	Zachary Brown	English	Orthographic	Plover 2.5.8 modified for Kinglet		Learn Plover! Kinglet tutorial

Phenrsteno

Phenrsteno is a machine shorthand theory implemented as a system for Plover. It's designed for non-rhotic accents—British English in particular—but really anyone might like to use it or adapt it to their own idiolect.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Phenrsteno	Gregory Chamberlain	English	Phonetic	<code>plover-phenrsteno</code>	15k entries	Phenrsteno wiki

Plover Czech

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟠 Plover Czech	Ashlynn Anderson	Czech	Phonetic	<code>plover-czech</code>

Especias

Finnish Especias

An orthographic system (spelling-based) for Finnish capable of writing Swedish loadwords. The layout allows writing two "vowels" and two "consonants" per stroke. The available consonants include a few consonant clusters, and the first vowel must be from a list of mostly short vowels and the second vowel is chosen from one of two lists to match the frontness of the first vowel.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Especias	Lars Rune Præstmark	Finnish	Orthographic	Built-in	Dictionary

Spanish Especias

A layout that allows writing two "vowels" and two "consonants" per stroke. It uses the same layout as Finnish, except for one of the colon keys being replaced with an s to write plurals.

	Author	Language	Type	Plugin	Dictionary	Notes
🟢 Especias	Lars Rune Præstmark	Spanish	Orthographic	Built-in	Dictionary