# Text to speech reader: listen to books, PDFs and articles

Updated 2026-10-24

A text to speech reader reads written text aloud so you can listen instead of reading: a book on a walk, a long article while cooking, notes before an exam, a document you want to proofread by ear. Reading aloud also helps people with dyslexia or tired eyes.

This guide shows how to turn any text, PDF or article into an audio file on your own computer with the free SuperClonica engine and a natural voice from the catalog, offline and without a character limit.

## Pick a voice you like to listen to

For long listening, choose a calm, even voice: a narrator or a conversational male or female voice. Listen to the demos in the catalog and try your own sentence on the page of a voice before you download it; some voices are free.

## Install the reader

Install Python 3 and the free SuperClonica engine with one command: python -m pip install superclonica-cpu. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux on an ordinary processor, without a graphics card and without an internet connection once the model is downloaded. Put the voice file you downloaded next to your texts.

## Read a text file aloud

Save the text as a plain.txt file and voice it with one command: superclonica --text "$(cat book.txt)" --voice narrator.json --lang en --output book.wav. The engine splits long texts at natural pauses, reads them piece by piece and joins them into one audio file you can play on any device.

## Read a PDF or an article aloud

The reader takes plain text, so first get the text out of the document.

- PDF: save it as text from your PDF viewer, or use a converter such as pdftotext (pdftotext book.pdf book.txt).
- Web article: copy the text of the article into a.txt file, without menus and comments.
- Word or e-book: export or save as plain text.
- Remove page numbers, headers and footnotes you do not want to hear.

## Make it pleasant to listen to

Split a long book into chapters and voice each chapter into its own file, so you can stop and resume easily. Check that abbreviations and unusual numbers are written the way they should be read. Choose the language of the text with --lang; one voice reads all 31 languages of Supertonic 3, but not Chinese yet.

## Online test before you install

To hear how a voice reads your kind of text, open its page, paste a sentence of 30 to 100 characters and press Voice it. You can listen and download the recording without an account. Long texts are read by the engine on your computer.

## More guides

- [How to convert text to speech offline on your computer](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/offline-text-to-speech)
- [Voice cloning: how to get a voice that sounds like a recording](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/voice-cloning)
- [The best free text-to-speech models for local use in 2026](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/best-free-tts-models)
- [Text to speech for videos, audiobooks, games and apps](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/text-to-speech-for-videos)
- [Supertonic 3 voices: where to get custom voices and how to use them](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/supertonic-3-voices)
- [Text to speech in Python: offline, free and with natural voices](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/python-text-to-speech)
- [Self-hosted text-to-speech API in Docker](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/text-to-speech-api-docker)
- [Text to speech in character voices: voice any line as your favourite character](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/character-voice-generator)
- [Free unlimited text to speech without sign-up: run it on your own computer](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/free-unlimited-text-to-speech)
- [Narrator voice generator: narration for videos, audiobooks and podcasts](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/narrator-voice-generator)
- [Child voice text to speech: kid and teenager AI voices](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/child-voice-text-to-speech)
- [Anime voice generator: text to speech in anime character voices](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/anime-voice-generator)
- [Text to speech in 31 languages: one voice for every language](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/text-to-speech-languages)
- [Female voice text to speech: natural AI female voices](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/female-voice-text-to-speech)
- [Male voice text to speech: deep and natural AI male voices](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/male-voice-text-to-speech)
- [Realistic text to speech: AI voices that sound human](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/realistic-text-to-speech)
- [AI voice generator: turn text into speech with ready AI voices](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/ai-voice-generator)
- [TikTok voice generator: voices for TikTok, Shorts and Reels](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/tiktok-voice-generator)
- [Dota 2 hero voices: make any hero say your line](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/dota-2-voice-generator)
- [Cartoon voice generator: make a cartoon character say your text](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/cartoon-voice-generator)
- [Jarvis voice generator: your text in a Jarvis-style AI voice](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/jarvis-voice-generator)
- [Darth Vader voice generator: Star Wars voices for your text](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/darth-vader-voice-generator)
- [Train your own TTS voice on your NVIDIA GPU](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/train-tts-voice)
- [Emotional text to speech: how to make an AI voice sound expressive](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/emotional-text-to-speech)
- [Hindi text to speech: AI voices that read Hindi](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/hindi-text-to-speech)
- [Spanish text to speech: AI voices that read Spanish](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/spanish-text-to-speech)
- [Japanese text to speech: AI voices that read Japanese](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/japanese-text-to-speech)
- [Russian text to speech with voices recorded in Russian](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/russian-text-to-speech)
- [Portuguese text to speech: AI voices that read Portuguese](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/portuguese-text-to-speech)
- [German text to speech: AI voices that read German](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/german-text-to-speech)
- [French text to speech: AI voices that read French](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/french-text-to-speech)
- [Korean text to speech: AI voices that read Korean](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/korean-text-to-speech)
- [English text to speech: AI voices that read English](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/english-text-to-speech)
- [Arabic text to speech: AI voices that read Arabic](https://superclonica.com/en/guides/arabic-text-to-speech)

## Text to speech and comparisons

- [Text-to-speech that runs on your own computer](https://superclonica.com/en/text-to-speech)
- [Supertonic vs SuperClonica: same model, faster and cleaner](https://superclonica.com/en/compare/supertonic)
- [Fish Audio and Fish Speech vs SuperClonica](https://superclonica.com/en/compare/fish-audio)
- [OmniVoice vs SuperClonica: more languages or more speed](https://superclonica.com/en/compare/omnivoice)
- [Qwen3-TTS vs SuperClonica for local text-to-speech](https://superclonica.com/en/compare/qwen3-tts)
- [VoxCPM 2 vs SuperClonica: studio sound or CPU speed](https://superclonica.com/en/compare/voxcpm)
- [F5-TTS vs SuperClonica: zero-shot cloning or fast CPU speech](https://superclonica.com/en/compare/f5-tts)
- [An offline alternative to ElevenLabs](https://superclonica.com/en/compare/elevenlabs)
- [Kokoro TTS vs SuperClonica: two small models for local speech](https://superclonica.com/en/compare/kokoro)
- [Piper TTS vs SuperClonica: tiny devices or custom voices](https://superclonica.com/en/compare/piper)
- [Coqui XTTS-v2 vs SuperClonica: a Coqui TTS alternative](https://superclonica.com/en/compare/xtts)
- [Chatterbox TTS vs SuperClonica: instant cloning or a trained voice file](https://superclonica.com/en/compare/chatterbox)

## Frequently asked questions

### Is this text to speech reader free?

Yes. The SuperClonica engine is free and reads texts on your computer without limits. Some voices are free; others are bought once and then used without limits.

### Can it read PDF files?

It reads plain text. Convert the PDF to text first, for example with pdftotext or by saving it as text in your PDF viewer, and then voice the text file.

### Does it work offline?

Yes. After installation and the first model download, the engine reads texts without an internet connection, and your texts never leave your computer.

### Do I need a graphics card?

No. The engine runs on an ordinary processor; a graphics card is optional.

- [Choose a voice](https://superclonica.com/en/explore)
- [Install the SuperClonica engine](https://superclonica.com/en/superclonica)

## Sources

- [Supertonic 3 model card](https://huggingface.co/supertone-oss-archive/supertonic-3)
- [SuperClonica engine on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/superclonica-cpu/)
- [SuperClonica](https://superclonica.com/en/)
- [AI voice catalog for text to speech](https://superclonica.com/en/explore)
- [Custom voice commissions for Supertonic 3](https://superclonica.com/en/requests)
- [How it works: voices, local speech, training](https://superclonica.com/en/guide)
- [Install the faster Supertonic 3 engine](https://superclonica.com/en/superclonica)
- [About us: speech synthesis enthusiasts](https://superclonica.com/en/about)
- [Contacts, support and voice complaints](https://superclonica.com/en/contacts)
- [Privacy policy: what data we keep](https://superclonica.com/en/privacy)
- [Terms of use: rules for buyers and authors](https://superclonica.com/en/terms)
- [Text to speech](https://superclonica.com/en/text-to-speech)