What is Skim or Dive?
Skim or Dive is a free ebook reader for iPhone and Android that reads your own EPUB and text files. Its defining feature is a five-level detail slider: any passage can be read at level 5 — the author’s original prose, unchanged — down to level 1, a one-sentence condensation of that same passage. You move the slider mid-chapter, so you can ease past a slow stretch and read the next scene in full, instead of adding another book to the did-not-finish pile.
See it in action
The same chapter, your way — skimmed down to the essentials or dived into word for word.
Three ways to read that no other app gives you
Upload any EPUB or text file and read it on your terms — the density of the prose, the length of the story, and a guide to ask when you lose the thread, all under your control.
Variable Detail Slider
Tap any passage and dial it between five levels of detail. Level 1 is a one-sentence condensation; level 5 is the original prose; everything in between is a graduated density. Skim the filler, dive into the climax — same book, your pacing.
Ask the Book
Forgotten who a character is, or lost the thread of the plot? Ask a question mid-read and get an answer drawn only from the pages you’ve already read — never from ahead. No spoilers, just a nudge back into the story.
One More Chapter
Reached the end and not ready to leave? Pick a tone — silly, exciting, mind-bending, or a whole new genre — and Skim or Dive writes a continuation grounded in your book’s real characters and voice. Not a generic story. Yours.
Who it’s for
Anyone with a stack of books that all have a bookmark around page 70. A few readers it fits particularly well:
Readers with ADHD
Books rarely get abandoned out of boredom — they get abandoned at the low-stimulus stretch, or the moment you’ve lost the thread and would have to re-read to recover it. Both of those have a setting now. Reading with ADHD →
Readers short on time
Twenty minutes before sleep doesn’t get you through a 500-page novel at full detail. Ease the density down for the parts that aren’t earning the time, and spend it on the parts that are.
Reading in a second language
Take a chapter at level 2 to get the shape of what happens, then dive to level 5 for the passages worth reading word for word — with tap-to-define on any word you don’t know.
Your books. Your depth. Your ending.
Free on iPhone and Android. Bring your own EPUB or text files.
Questions? hello@skimordive.com