Ask Jas

The in-app assistant for how-to and account questions — and a kinder version for children.

Jas answers questions about Zen Reader: how a feature works, where a setting lives, what something on a report means, and questions about your account. She is in the app's menu, and in the corner of every page on this website.

Children get Jas too, in a gentler, voice-first form aimed at a young reader. Parents get the fuller version, which can also do things to your library.

What she is good at

• "How do I add a spelling list?"
• "Why is this word marked wrong?"
• "Where do I change who can see my child's work?"
• "How do I cancel?"

What she will not do

• She never quotes a price. Prices change, and an assistant repeating an old one would be worse than useless — she points you at the pricing page for the live figure.
• She is not the homework tutor. For the worksheet your child is stuck on, use Homework help.

Using it

Type and press Enter — Shift and Enter together start a new line — or tap the microphone and tap it again to send. Replies are formatted, and can be read aloud: there is a speed control and an HD switch that uses a better online voice, or the device's own with it off.

The conversation resumes where you left it, across page visits and app restarts. A reply you were part-way through typing survives leaving the screen too, though only until the app closes.

New chat starts a clean thread — worth doing when you change subject, since it stops earlier context colouring the answer. Previous chats lists the old ones, and you can rename or delete any of them.

If she is busy she says so and asks you to try again in a moment.

Sending her a file

Attach a file — the paperclip beside the message box — sends a photograph, a scan or a document with your message. Up to 10 files at a time, each up to about 32 MB: photographs (JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP, HEIC), PDFs, plain text, CSV and log files, Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, saved emails, and ZIPs.

A file uploads the moment you choose it rather than when you press Send, so anything too large, or of a type she cannot read, is refused while you are still choosing rather than after you have typed the message. A file that did not go says Didn't send instead of pretending it arrived, and one she cannot make sense of says Jas can't read this one.

Files stay with the conversation, so Previous chats shows them again when you come back. Tap one to open it; Save this file keeps a copy — on Windows and Mac it asks where to put it, and on a phone or tablet it hands it to the usual share sheet.

Jas needs the AI helpers turned on

Jas is one of the features that sends what you type off your device, so she is covered by Settings → AI features. The first time she is used, Zen Reader asks the Family Manager's permission and names who receives what; with it off, Jas says so rather than failing quietly. See Settings.

She can change your library

This is the part people do not expect. A parent can ask Jas to do a job across their books — rename them from the code on the cover, mark title and copyright pages as not part of the reading, tidy up junk practice runs — and she will work out what she proposes to do.

Nothing happens until you approve it. She shows the plan item by item, exactly as the Library's own Process books… button does, and you tick off what should go ahead. Read it before you agree; where she is unsure she says so on the item.

Children cannot do this — a Reader's Jas answers questions only.

When she gets something wrong

Report this reply sends it to us with the conversation attached. You pick what was wrong with it — rude or offensive, unsafe, sexual, violent or scary, wrong or misleading, or something else — and can add a note. It comes back with a reference number and reaches us as a real support ticket, not a rating that disappears into an average.

For anything Jas cannot settle, email support@zenreader.co.