A Forward Chess alternative for the books already on your shelf

Your own books, from any publisher

Open a PDF or ePub you own, from any publisher or year. GreyChess finds the diagrams on each page as you reach it, reads each one into a board beside the page, and fits the moves printed after it, so the book’s own lines are a click from playing through.

Diagrams in standard chess fonts are read from the PDF’s text. A diagram the search missed can be boxed by hand, and in an ePub every image has a Scan diagram button.

More than a reader

The board beside the book is the whole of GreyChess, so what you read goes straight into practice.

• Stockfish 18 in your browser for a second opinion, and any position opened on Lichess with its moves.
• A chapter becomes a course: its positions to solve, answered by the book’s own moves, then flashcards that come back just before you would forget them.
• Read aloud: a page or a chapter in the book’s own language, with the moves said in words.
• Your book file stays on your device. To scan a diagram, only numbers taken from the image are sent.

Where Forward Chess may suit you better

Fair is fair. Forward Chess does some things GreyChess does not.

• Books made interactive before you buy them: in a Forward Chess book the lines are already on the board. GreyChess reads a book’s diagrams and moves from the page, so an unusual diagram or a misprint can need a correction, which the pencil makes.
• A store of new books: titles from Quality Chess, New in Chess, Mongoose Press and other publishers, bought one at a time. GreyChess sells no books: it works on the ones you have.
• Apps from the stores: Forward Chess has apps for iPhone, iPad and Android that keep books for reading offline. GreyChess installs from the browser, and needs a connection to read a new board.

A note on sources

What this page says about Forward Chess comes from its own pages, as they read in October 2026, and may have changed since. Forward Chess is a trademark of its owner, named here only to compare: GreyChess is not affiliated with Forward Chess, nor endorsed by it.