PDF to audio in Telugu, Hindi and other Indian languages

Turn a Word file or a PDF into MP3 audio, read aloud in a natural Indian voice. DocSpeak reads the text of the document, not the page numbers and running heads, and gives you one MP3 for each chapter, ready to play on a phone or in a car.

Make audio with DocSpeak

Telugu

మా ఊరి గ్రంథాలయం చిన్నదే అయినా, అక్కడ దొరకని పుస్తకం లేదు. సాయంత్రం అయ్యేసరికి పిల్లలు, పెద్దలు అందరూ అక్కడికి చేరుకుంటారు. కొందరు వార్తాపత్రికలు చదువుతారు, కొందరు కథల పుస్తకాలు తిరగేస్తారు. కళ్ళు సరిగా కనిపించని మా తాతగారికి మాత్రం ఎవరో ఒకరు గట్టిగా చదివి వినిపించాలి. ఇప్పుడు ఆ పుస్తకమే ఆయనకు చదివి వినిపిస్తుంది.

Hindi

हमारे गाँव का पुस्तकालय छोटा है, पर वहाँ हर तरह की किताबें मिल जाती हैं। शाम होते ही बच्चे और बड़े सब वहाँ पहुँच जाते हैं। कोई अख़बार पढ़ता है, कोई कहानियों की किताब पलटता है। मेरी दादी की आँखें कमज़ोर हैं, इसलिए उन्हें कोई न कोई पढ़कर सुनाता था। अब किताब ख़ुद उन्हें पढ़कर सुनाती है।

Two short passages written for this page, read by DocSpeak exactly as it reads a document, with nothing edited afterwards.

How to turn a document into audio

Sign in, open DocSpeak and choose a Word file (.docx) or a PDF with selectable text.
Check the number of pages, the minutes of audio and the price, shown before anything is spoken.
Listen to a free 30-second preview of your own file.
Make the audio, then download one MP3, or a zip with one MP3 for each chapter.

It reads the document, not the page

A printed page carries more than the text: a book’s title at the top of every page, a page number at the bottom, a table laid out in columns. Read out word for word, those would interrupt every few minutes. DocSpeak takes the body of the document and leaves out the running heads, headers, footers and page numbers. A table is read a row at a time, its cells one after another.

A PDF is first turned into a Word document by the same engine as PDF to Word, so a clean, digital PDF reads best.

One MP3 for each chapter

Every Heading 1 in a Word file starts a new chapter, and each chapter becomes its own MP3, named after its heading in the document’s own script and numbered in order, all in one zip. A short document, or one with no headings, is a single MP3. A chapter of only a few lines is joined to the one after it, so a title page does not become a file of its own.

The files are mono MP3s at 32 kbps, about a quarter of a megabyte for each minute of audio, small enough to keep a whole book on a phone.

How long the audio is, and how long it takes

The voice reads about 12 characters a second, so a page of 2,000 characters is about three minutes of audio. Before anything is spoken, DocSpeak counts the pages and the minutes of audio in your file and shows the price.

Making the audio is much faster than listening to it: in the first live job, a two-chapter Telugu Word file gave 5.6 minutes of audio in 23.5 seconds. A long book takes a few minutes.

Hear your own file before you pay

The free 30-second preview reads the start of your own document, so you hear how the voice handles its names, numbers and English words before you spend anything. The voice was chosen by listening to Telugu; no reader has yet checked it in each of the other languages, so the preview is the honest test.

What it does not read yet

A scanned PDF, a page that is a picture of text, is not read yet: convert it with PDF to Word first, which reads it with OCR, and give DocSpeak the Word file. A document typed in an old, non-Unicode font, such as Kruti Dev or Anu, has to be converted to Unicode first with the Legacy Font tool. Text inside pictures is not read.

What happens to each part of the document

Body text, headings and lists: Read in order, in the language of the text.
Running heads, headers, footers, page numbers: Left out, so the reading is not interrupted at every page.
Tables: Read a row at a time, the cells one after another.
A Heading 1 in a Word file: Starts a new chapter, which becomes its own MP3.
A scanned page or text in a picture: Not read yet. Convert a scan with PDF to Word first.

Frequently asked questions

Which languages can DocSpeak read?

Telugu, Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati, Punjabi, Odia, Bengali and English. The language is taken from the letters of the text, so you do not need to choose it.

Can it read a scanned PDF?

Not yet. A PDF needs selectable text. For a scan, convert it with PDF to Word first, which reads the page with OCR, then give DocSpeak the Word file that comes out.

How much audio is a page, and what does it cost?

A page is 2,000 characters, about three minutes of audio. Your first page is free, once per account, and a 30-second preview of a file is free, up to a few a day. Pages past that are paid in credits (one credit is one rupee) at the rate on the Pricing page, and the price is shown before anything is charged. The Limits page lists the free allowance as it stands today.

Do I need an account?

Yes, a free account with a confirmed e-mail address. The audio is made for the account that asked, and it is kept only as long as any other file.

Whose voice is it?

One natural male voice from Google’s Gemini voices, the same in every language. The audio is made in Google’s data centres in the US, Canada or Europe, because Google offers these voices in no Indian region; the Privacy page says what is sent.

What happens to my file?

It is stored encrypted while the audio is made and removed by a cleanup that runs every 15 minutes, so neither the document nor the audio is kept longer than 4 hours after upload. Download the MP3s before then.