Listen to a PDF. Free.
Open a PDF and press play. Your device takes the text out of the PDF and reads it sentence by sentence. Your place is saved if you stop.
- Free, no sign-up
- Runs in your browser. Your files never leave your device.
- Updated
Reading the file…
Drop to read it aloud
Voice and speed
Nothing to read yet
Shortcuts work when you're not typing in the box.
- Space
- Play or pause
- ← →
- Previous or next sentence
- Esc
- Stop
- − +
- Slower or faster
- E
- Edit the text
Your voice, speed and place in each text are remembered on this device either way.
How do I get a PDF read aloud?
Choose Open a file above, or drop the PDF on the box, then press play. Kortex takes the text out of each page in your browser. It joins lines that the PDF broke mid-sentence. It reads the text with your device’s voices and highlights the current sentence.
- Open the PDF. A progress bar counts the pages as they are read. A 300-page book takes a few seconds.
- Check the text. Running headers or page numbers sometimes end up in it. Press Edit text to delete them before you listen.
- Pick a voice and a speed, and press play or the space bar. Click any sentence to start from there.
What about scanned PDFs?
A scanned PDF is a stack of page photos with no text inside, so there is nothing to read aloud. Run the pages through Image to Text (OCR) first, then paste the text here. The tool tells you when a PDF has no text, so you do not hear silence.
Can I listen to a whole book?
Yes. It reads up to 3 million characters at a time, which covers most books. It remembers the sentence you reached. Open the same PDF again on this device and it offers to continue where you stopped. EPUB ebooks and Word documents work the same way.
| Format | What it reads |
|---|---|
| The text on every page, in reading order. Not images or scans. | |
| EPUB | Every chapter, in the book’s own order. |
| Word (.docx) | Headings, paragraphs, lists and tables. |
Which voice should I use?
The best voices depend on your device. On a Mac or iPhone, download a Premium or Enhanced voice. On Windows, Microsoft Edge adds natural-sounding online voices. The steps for each system are on the main Text to Speech page.
Questions
How do I get a PDF read aloud for free?
Open the PDF above, pick a voice and press play. The tool takes the text out of the PDF on your device, splits it into sentences and reads it with your browser’s voices. There is no sign-up and no page limit.
Why won’t my PDF read?
Scanned PDFs are pictures of pages with no text inside. Run them through Image to Text (OCR) first and paste the result here. For a PDF with a password, remove the password before you open it here.
Does it read headers, footnotes and page numbers?
It reads the text in page order. It usually drops running headers and page numbers that sit apart from the body, but some PDFs mix them into the text. You can edit the text before you press play.
Is my PDF uploaded?
No. Your browser reads the PDF, and it never leaves your device. Only voices marked “online” send the text, sentence by sentence, to your browser’s maker to be spoken. Voices marked “on device” keep it all local.
Can I save the PDF as an audio file?
Not from a web page. Browsers do not let a site record their voices. On a Mac, save the text and run say -f notes.txt -o notes.m4a in Terminal to make an audio file.
Will it remember my page next time?
Yes. Open the same PDF again on this device and it offers to continue from the sentence you reached. The tool stores only a fingerprint of the text and the sentence number.
More free tools
- Text to Speech Listen to any text with the voices on your device.
- QR Code Generator Make QR codes for links, Wi-Fi, contacts and more. Add your logo.
- Merge PDF Join PDFs into one file. Reorder and rotate pages in your browser.
- Split PDF Split a PDF by page, range or size. Or pull out the pages you need.
- PDF to Text Get clean text or Markdown out of any PDF, page by page.
Listen to your notebooks as a podcast.
Kortex turns Gemini Notebook’s Audio Overviews into a podcast feed you can play in any podcast app.
No card needed.