Will Audionarrator work with my textbook PDF?

Almost always — if the PDF has a text layer (which most modern textbooks, papers, and technical books do). Audionarrator reads the document structure to find chapters, classifies front matter so you're not narrated the table of contents, and produces a real audiobook with chapter-aware navigation.

What about scanned books or screenshots?

Today we detect when a PDF is scanned (image-only, no text layer) and tell you up front — OCR isn't live yet. Screenshot upload and OCR for scans are next on the roadmap. If your book is old or a photocopy, sit tight; if you have the publisher PDF, you're good now.

How does Audionarrator handle equations, figures, and code blocks?

Honest answer: today they're skipped — we narrate the prose around them. Reading equations or code aloud literally is hostile to listening, and we'd rather skip cleanly than narrate gibberish. Smart equation-to-speech ("the integral of f of x…") and image caption extraction are in the build queue.

How is Audionarrator different from Speechify, Audible, and NotebookLM?

Audible recorded the books publishers signed deals for. Speechify narrates articles and pages of text as one long stream. NotebookLM gives you a podcast about a document, not the document itself. Audionarrator is for the books on your shelf that aren't any of those — textbooks, research papers, technical reads — turned into a real chapter-aware audiobook you actually own.

Is it legal to make audiobooks of books I own?

Your file, your use. Audionarrator processes the PDFs you upload privately for you; we never redistribute, share, or sell access to your books. This is the same legal ground as using a screen reader on a PDF you bought. If you're uploading something you don't have rights to, that's on you — Audionarrator isn't a piracy tool.

What happens to my files after I upload them?

Source PDFs and generated audio live encrypted in private storage, accessible only to your account. Nothing's used for training. Delete a book and the file is removed from storage as well as from your library. Delete your account and everything goes with it.

Audionarrator · for the books on your shelf

PDF to audiobook — done right.

Listen to the books you already own.

Drop in a PDF, DOCX, or EPUB. Audionarrator finds the chapters, hides the table of contents and front matter, and gives you back a real audiobook.

Chapter detection that knows body, front matter, and index
Every voice on every plan
Resume across phone, laptop, and the train

Convert your first PDF — free See how it works ↓

No credit card. 5,000 words to try it.

Why this exists

Built for the books no one is going to record for you.

Speechify and ElevenLabs Reader narrate articles. NotebookLM summarises them. Audible recorded the books publishers signed deals for. Most of what's on your shelf isn't any of those — it's the textbook your professor assigned, the white paper you keep meaning to read, the technical book you bought on a flight.

Audionarrator is for the rest of your library. Drop the PDF. Get chapter detection that actually understands what a front matter is. Listen on a walk, on a train, while you fold laundry. The book is yours; the time is, finally, too.

Inside

Built like a reading app. Not a TTS pipe with a pretty wrapper.

A library you'd want to use. A chapter list that hides what you don't want to hear. A player that knows where you left off. These are real product screens, not marketing illustrations.

Your library

6 books · 4 in progress

Library

Molecular Biology of the Cell

Chapter 4 of 24

Designing Data-Intensive Applications

Chapter 7 of 12

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Ready to start

The Pragmatic Programmer

Finished

Atomic Habits

Chapter 3 of 20

Sapiens

Ready to start

Book detail

Book · 24 chapters

Molecular Biology of the Cell

18 in playback · 6 hidden as front matter

Chapters

Introduction to Cells

12:34·Finished

The Chemistry of Life

28:01·Finished

Proteins

34:12·Finished

The Cellular Basis of Inheritance

12:34 / 24:01·52% in

DNA, Chromosomes, and Genomes

18:42

DNA Replication and Repair

31:55

How it works

Three steps. About a minute.

Drop your PDF.

Drag onto the library or browse to upload. Anything up to 50 MB. Textbooks, papers, dense technical reads — anything with selectable text.

Detection runs.

Audionarrator parses the document structure to find chapters, then classifies each one — body, front matter, back matter — so the table of contents doesn't get narrated.

Listen anywhere.

Open the chapter list, hit play. Resume across devices. Switch chapters freely. Skip what you don't want. It's an audiobook you actually control.

Use it for

The reads that don't get recorded.

Textbooks

Cell biology, organic chemistry, real analysis. The textbook your professor assigned that you've never actually finished.

Research papers

The 40-page PDF you keep telling yourself you'll read this weekend. Drop it in, hear it on the walk to lab.

Technical books

DDIA, Compilers, The Mythical Man-Month. The shelf you've carefully curated but haven't actually read past chapter three.

Plans

Start free. Pay only if it sticks.

Full pricing details

Free

$0to try

5,000 words on signup

Creator

$9/mo

50,000 words · Q&A · downloads

Pro

$45/mo

200,000 words · 3 concurrent · priority

Studio

$149/mo

600,000 words · unlimited library

Worth knowing

Questions you're probably having.

Will Audionarrator work with my textbook PDF?: Almost always — if the PDF has a text layer (which most modern textbooks, papers, and technical books do). Audionarrator reads the document structure to find chapters, classifies front matter so you're not narrated the table of contents, and produces a real audiobook with chapter-aware navigation.
What about scanned books or screenshots?: Today we detect when a PDF is scanned (image-only, no text layer) and tell you up front — OCR isn't live yet. Screenshot upload and OCR for scans are next on the roadmap. If your book is old or a photocopy, sit tight; if you have the publisher PDF, you're good now.
How does Audionarrator handle equations, figures, and code blocks?: Honest answer: today they're skipped — we narrate the prose around them. Reading equations or code aloud literally is hostile to listening, and we'd rather skip cleanly than narrate gibberish. Smart equation-to-speech ("the integral of f of x…") and image caption extraction are in the build queue.
How is Audionarrator different from Speechify, Audible, and NotebookLM?: Audible recorded the books publishers signed deals for. Speechify narrates articles and pages of text as one long stream. NotebookLM gives you a podcast about a document, not the document itself. Audionarrator is for the books on your shelf that aren't any of those — textbooks, research papers, technical reads — turned into a real chapter-aware audiobook you actually own.
Is it legal to make audiobooks of books I own?: Your file, your use. Audionarrator processes the PDFs you upload privately for you; we never redistribute, share, or sell access to your books. This is the same legal ground as using a screen reader on a PDF you bought. If you're uploading something you don't have rights to, that's on you — Audionarrator isn't a piracy tool.
What happens to my files after I upload them?: Source PDFs and generated audio live encrypted in private storage, accessible only to your account. Nothing's used for training. Delete a book and the file is removed from storage as well as from your library. Delete your account and everything goes with it.

From the maker

I built Audionarrator because I had a 600-page systems textbook for a class with no audiobook. I tried Speechify on the PDF — it read every footnote, every page header, every figure caption like running prose. NotebookLM gave me a podcast about the book. I wanted to listen to the book itself.

So I built something that knows what a chapter is, what front matter is, and what you don't want to hear. It's early — there's a lot still being added. But if you've been meaning to read a book and would rather listen, give it a try.

Micheal

Founder · Audionarrator

One book. Free.

No subscription, no credit card. Upload your first book and see if it sticks.

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