Convert & Export
Read a PDF Aloud
Have a document read to you while you do something else. The text is taken from the PDF in reading order and spoken one sentence at a time with the voices on your device; the sentence being read is highlighted, and you can pause, skip, change the speed and jump to any page.
- Runs in your browser — no upload
- Free — no sign-up
How to use Read PDF Aloud
- 1Open the PDF. Its text is extracted on your device.
- 2Choose a language, a voice and a speed.
- 3Press Play. Use the skip buttons or select a sentence to jump around; the current sentence is highlighted.
Why use Read PDF Aloud on PDF NOVA
Files stay on your device
Processing happens in your browser. Your document is never uploaded to a server, so there is nothing to delete afterwards.
Your own voices
Speech comes from the voices installed in your browser or operating system, in every language they offer, with adjustable speed. PDF NOVA has no speech service.
No sign-up, no watermark
Open the page and start working. Results are clean PDFs with no branding added.
Processing on your device
Read PDF Aloud processes your file in your browser on your device. The file is not uploaded for processing. Download the result to keep a permanent copy. Your active PDF is saved locally in this browser for recovery across refreshes. Close Document removes it; recovery expires after 24 hours and is cleaned up when PDF NOVA next opens. Unsaved changes are not restored.
Related PDF tools
- FREE
OCR PDF
Recognise text in scanned PDFs and images — English, French, Arabic, Spanish, German, Italian.
Frequently asked questions
Is Read PDF Aloud free?
Yes. Read PDF Aloud is free to use without an account and does not add a watermark to your file.
Are my files uploaded anywhere?
No. This tool runs entirely in your web browser using JavaScript and Web Workers. The file is read from your device, processed in memory and saved back to your device.
Is anything sent to a speech service?
PDF NOVA never uploads the document. Voices that run on your device read it locally. Some browsers also offer online voices (marked “online” in the list), which send each sentence to the browser’s speech provider; choose a voice without that mark to keep everything on the device.
Why is there no voice to choose?
Your browser or system has no text-to-speech voices installed. Add a voice in your system’s speech settings, or try another current browser, then reload the page.
Why does it say there is no text?
The PDF is probably a scan, which holds pictures of pages instead of text. Run OCR PDF first to recognise the text, then open the result here.
Where does it resume after a pause?
At the start of the sentence that was being read, because not every browser can pause in the middle of a sentence.