---
title: "PDF to Audio: Hear PDFs and Notes Read Aloud | ToolSugar"
description: "Turn a PDF, a chapter or photos of notes into an MP3 you can listen to. Reading, scanning and voicing all happen in your browser, and nothing is uploaded."
canonical: https://toolsugar.com/tools/pdf-to-audio
image: https://toolsugar.com/og.png
---

# PDF to Audio

ToolSugar reads your PDF in the browser and voices the text as an MP3 with a voice on your device. An optional tidy step uses plain rules, not AI, to drop page numbers and repeating headers. Scanned pages and photos are read with OCR in the browser. Nothing is uploaded.

Runs on your device

## How it works

1. Add one PDF, or up to 20 photos of your pages.
2. For a PDF, enter a page range to hear one chapter, or leave it empty to read every page.
3. Turn on the tidy step to drop page numbers, repeated headers and citation marks, and to spell out English abbreviations. It uses rules and never rewrites sentences.
4. Pick a language and a voice, make the audio, then listen and download the MP3 and the text.

## Key facts

- **Output**: MP3 at 128 kbps, plus the text that was read
- **Length limit**: 60,000 characters per run, about an hour of listening
- **Scanned pages**: Up to 20 per run, read by OCR in the browser in English, Spanish, French, German, Hindi, Italian or Portuguese
- **What leaves your device**: Nothing. Each run counts as one of 5 free AI runs in any rolling 24 hours
- **Voices**: English, Spanish, French, German, Hindi, Italian and Portuguese. Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Arabic have none
- **Locked PDFs**: Not supported. Remove the password first.

## Common uses

- Listen to a set chapter on the way to class by entering just its page range.
- Photograph your handwritten notes and hear them played back while you revise.
- Proofread a thesis draft by ear, where clumsy sentences are easier to catch.

## Questions

### Is my PDF uploaded?

No. The text is extracted in your browser, scanned pages and photos are read there with OCR, and the voice runs on your device. The first run downloads a voice of 20 to 86 MB, and scanned pages download a small language file.

### How long can the document be?

One run reads up to 60,000 characters, about an hour of listening. If your selection is longer, the tool stops before spending anything and asks for a page range, so you can run a long book chapter by chapter.

### Why does a long document take so long?

Voices make speech one sentence at a time on your own processor, so long text can take a while, depending on your device. A progress bar shows how far along it is, and you can cancel at any time.

### Can it read handwriting?

The OCR is built for print, so handwriting is often misread, and it also slips on names and numbers. The text it read is shown beside the audio, so you can check it. Printed pages give the most reliable result.

[Read the PDF to Audio guide](https://toolsugar.com/blog/how-to-listen-to-a-pdf)

## Related tools

- [Lecture to Notes](https://toolsugar.com/tools/lecture-to-notes)
- [Text to Speech](https://toolsugar.com/tools/text-to-speech)
- [Audio Cutter](https://toolsugar.com/tools/audio-cutter)
- [Audio Converter](https://toolsugar.com/tools/audio-converter)