Make audio books from PDF and EPUB content

Convert text to speech directly from more formats, including PDF, EPUB, RTF and ODT.

We’re making it easier to produce audio books and read text out loud from documents. Read aloud PDF, Ebook (.epub), Rich Text Format (.rtf) and Open Document Text (.odt) files, in addition to MS Word (.docx). Narakeet text reader will extract the contents from the documents and allow you to quickly convert it into an audio version using natural realistic TTS readers.

To get started, open the Text to Audio tool, and click the “Upload” button.

Upload a document to the Text to audio tool

Then select a file with a supported extension (.txt,.docx,.pdf,.epub,.rtf,.odt,.doc,.xls,.xlsx,.ods,.vtt,.srt) and upload it to Narakeet. In a few moments, you’ll see the text from the document in the Script field, where you can review it and then produce an audio version of your article, or an audiobook.

Important notes when reading PDF aloud

PDF is a format optimised for printing, so there are some important things to know when converting directly from PDF.

  1. Upload PDFs with embedded text. Some PDF files do not contain text directly, but have text converted into images and vectors to ensure optimal printing. Narakeet does not currently support converting text back from vectors. We plan to support reading text from such PDFs in the future, so contact us if this is important for you.
  2. Check text for layout ordering. If your PDF has complex layout (call-out boxes, multi-column layout or tables), make sure to check that the text is in the right sequence. With print-optimised PDFs, sometimes it’s not easy to guess the correct sequence of reading out text lines.
  3. Check for graphic symbols. Print-optimised PDFs sometimes use graphic symbols, icon fonts and dingbat typefaces, which can be incorrectly interpreted as text. Visually it’s easy to distinguish that from regular text, but because this technique relies on a special font, audio readers might just think that the symbols are part of the narration.
  4. Use audio previews to check that the content of the PDF is correctly pronounced before running the conversion. Using a preview will help you save money and avoid charges for converting audio with such invalid text markers.

Narakeet helps you create text to speech voiceovers, turn Powerpoint presentations and Markdown scripts into engaging videos. It is under active development, so things change frequently. Keep up to date: RSS, Slack, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok

The media on this page includes images and videos by Joyce Busola on Unsplash