What is Ghostreader?
Ghostreader is the cheeky name for Reader’s AI-powered assistant that helps you get the most out of whatever you’re reading. This feature brings the power of LLMs into easy reach—no need to open a new tab, switch apps, or pull out another device to get more context!
Ghostreader comes with a few default prompts that enable you to do things like quickly summarize the document, look up a word (or a term, or a character, or a location), get more details about a new concept, draft a blurb for your newsletter, discover how a word or passage translates to any language, and much more. But Reader also offers the flexibility to customize the default prompts or even create brand new ones.
This guide will teach you how to chat with your documents, explain how each of the default prompts work, walk you through the anatomy of a prompt to help you understand how you can build your own, provide a large library of examples for you to use or get inspired by, and outline the details of the various tools you have at your disposal to incorporate your library's metadata into your custom prompts.
Looking for Ghostreader's default prompts?
Ghostreader is now integrated into the Chat interface on web and desktop. You can use the same keyboard shortcuts to access the preset prompts (G for word and passage selections, shift + G for the full document), but these will now output their reponses into the Chat. This allows you to ask follow-up questions and unifies Reader's AI into one cohesive tool.
How to invoke Ghostreader
You can use Ghostreader on the whole document or on selections of text within the document, and the available prompt presets will vary based on these use cases. For example, if you select one to four words, you'll see options meant for smaller selections, such as dictionary define and encyclopedia lookup.
To use a preset Ghostreader prompt on the full document, click into the Chat tab of the right sidebar and open the Preset prompts option in the chat window, or use the keyboard shortcut Shift + G.
On mobile, open the ... menu in the bottom right and tap the Ghostreader icon. Note that answers to document-level questions will appear in the Document Note field at the top of the Notebook panel.
To use Ghostreader on a specific piece of content within a document, select text and choose Chat about this from the context menu or use the keyboard shortcut G.
On mobile, tap the highlight and select the ghost icon in the menu that appears.
Learn about Ghostreader
Chat
Learn how to chat with your document and save interesting responses.
Default Prompts
Explore the functionality of Reader's default prompt set.
Custom Prompts
Learn how to write your own prompts to customize Ghostreader's functionality.
Prompt Library
A collection of prompt examples, ready for use and experimentation.
Reference
All available variables and subroutines to help you customize your prompts.
Tips & Tricks
Get some handy tips for how to make the most of Ghostreader.
