diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index ebd2f98..f761884 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -77,4 +77,4 @@ VignetteBuilder:
 Encoding: UTF-8
 LazyData: true
 Roxygen: list(markdown = TRUE)
-RoxygenNote: 7.2.1
+RoxygenNote: 7.2.3
diff --git a/NAMESPACE b/NAMESPACE
index 682dd6f..ea1a1fb 100644
--- a/NAMESPACE
+++ b/NAMESPACE
@@ -14,7 +14,8 @@ export(log_snakemake)
 export(parse_tax)
 export(paste_oxford_list)
 export(pool_taxon_counts)
-export(read_dist)
+export(read_lt_as_tbl)
+export(read_lt_mat)
 export(read_tax)
 export(set_knitr_opts)
 export(theme_lucas)
diff --git a/R/read_dist.R b/R/read_dist.R
index c086531..e19357c 100644
--- a/R/read_dist.R
+++ b/R/read_dist.R
@@ -1,8 +1,15 @@
-#' Read in lower left triangular matrix from file
+#' @name read_dist
+#' @title Read lower triangular distance files as tibbles and matrices
+NULL
+
+#' @describeIn read_dist Read in lower left triangular matrix as a long tibble
 #'
-#' @param dist_filename filename of lower left triangular matrix (.dist)
+#' Assumes the file is a phylip-formatted lower left triangular matrix
+#' as described in \url{https://mothur.org/wiki/phylip-formatted_distance_matrix/}
 #'
-#' @return distance matrix as a tibble
+#' @param filename file name of a lower left triangular matrix (`.dist`)
+#'
+#' @return matrix as a `tibble` in long format
 #' @export
 #' @author Nick Lesniak, \email{nlesniak@@umich.edu}
 #'
@@ -13,7 +20,7 @@
 #' )
 #' dist_tbl <- read_dist(dist_filepath)
 #' head(dist_tbl)
-read_dist <- function(dist_filename) {
+read_lt_as_tbl <- function(filename) {
   distances <- rows <- NULL
   # TODO: input validation - make sure file has expected format & throw errors if it doesn't
   # read in the first row to determine the matrix dimensions
@@ -39,3 +46,44 @@ read_dist <- function(dist_filename) {
       dplyr::filter(!is.na(distances))
   )
 }
+
+#' @describeIn read_dist Read in lower left triangular matrix
+#'
+#'
+#' @return matrix
+#' @export
+#' @author Pat Schloss, \email{pschloss@@umich.edu}
+read_lt_mat <- function(filename){
+
+    file <- scan(file_name,
+                 what=character(),
+                 quiet=TRUE,
+                 sep="\n")
+
+    n_samples <- as.numeric(file[1])
+    file <- file[-1]
+
+    file_split <- strsplit(file, "\t")
+
+    fill_in <- function(x, length){
+        c(x, rep("0", length - length(x)))
+    }
+
+    filled <- lapply(file_split, fill_in, length=n_samples + 1)
+
+    samples_distance_matrix <- do.call(rbind, filled)
+
+    samples <- samples_distance_matrix[,1]
+
+    dist_matrix <- samples_distance_matrix[,-1]
+    dist_matrix <- matrix(as.numeric(dist_matrix), nrow=n_samples)
+
+    if(sum(dist_matrix[upper.tri(dist_matrix)]) == 0){
+        dist_matrix <- dist_matrix+t(dist_matrix)
+    }
+
+    rownames(dist_matrix) <- samples
+    colnames(dist_matrix) <- samples
+
+    return(dist_matrix)
+}
diff --git a/man/read_dist.Rd b/man/read_dist.Rd
index 3f76f6e..3d38120 100644
--- a/man/read_dist.Rd
+++ b/man/read_dist.Rd
@@ -2,19 +2,35 @@
 % Please edit documentation in R/read_dist.R
 \name{read_dist}
 \alias{read_dist}
-\title{Read in lower left triangular matrix from file}
+\alias{read_lt_as_tbl}
+\alias{read_lt_mat}
+\title{Read lower triangular distance files as tibbles and matrices}
 \usage{
-read_dist(dist_filename)
+read_lt_as_tbl(filename)
+
+read_lt_mat(filename)
 }
 \arguments{
-\item{dist_filename}{filename of lower left triangular matrix (.dist)}
+\item{filename}{file name of a lower left triangular matrix (\code{.dist})}
 }
 \value{
-distance matrix as a tibble
+matrix as a \code{tibble} in long format
+
+matrix
 }
 \description{
-Read in lower left triangular matrix from file
+Read lower triangular distance files as tibbles and matrices
 }
+\section{Functions}{
+\itemize{
+\item \code{read_lt_as_tbl()}: Read in lower left triangular matrix as a long tibble
+
+Assumes the file is a phylip-formatted lower left triangular matrix
+as described in \url{https://mothur.org/wiki/phylip-formatted_distance_matrix/}
+
+\item \code{read_lt_mat()}: Read in lower left triangular matrix
+
+}}
 \examples{
 dist_filepath <- system.file("extdata",
   "sample.final.thetayc.0.03.lt.ave.dist",
@@ -25,4 +41,6 @@ head(dist_tbl)
 }
 \author{
 Nick Lesniak, \email{nlesniak@umich.edu}
+
+Pat Schloss, \email{pschloss@umich.edu}
 }
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-read_dist.R b/tests/testthat/test-read_dist.R
index efe7728..05c9569 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-read_dist.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-read_dist.R
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ test_that("read_dist works on example file", {
     row.names = c(NA, -6L),
     class = c("tbl_df", "tbl", "data.frame")
   )
-  dist_out <- read_dist(system.file("extdata",
+  dist_out <- read_dist_lt_as_tbl(system.file("extdata",
     "sample.final.thetayc.0.03.lt.ave.dist",
     package = "schtools"
   ))