Here are 2 best free PDF audio reader software. Whenever you have to read aloud text of a PDF file as audio, these software will come in handy. So, these are basically free PDF to speech software that can help you automatically read your PDF file.
Each PDF audio reader in this list has different and unique features. While one software lets you read PDF and save PDF as MP3 or WAV file, other software can read offline as well as online PDF file. You can also split PDF as different audio files using one of these software. So some really interesting features come with these PDF audio reader software.
Before I start, do note these PDF audio readers use Microsoft David and Microsoft Zira voices, which are default voices available in Windows. Natural voices are not supported by these software. Also, these PDF to speech software don’t work for scanned PDF files. If you have some scanned PDF, then you first need to convert scanned PDF to searchable PDF so that you can use these software to read PDF file.
Let’s see the first PDF audio reader software available in this list.
Balabolka
Balabolka is a powerful PDF audio reader software that comes with many options for reading the PDF file. It is also my favorite PDF audio reader software because of the features that it offers absolutely free. You can use this software to read selected text of PDF file, copy text from PDF and read it from clipboard, and read the whole PDF file automatically.
You can also set speech rate and pitch, which is a good feature. When you think the pitch is too low/high as well as reading or speech rate is not as per your expectation, then you can adjust it using the available sliders.
This PDF text to speech software also comes with two unique features: save the whole PDF as OGG, MP3, WAV, AMR, and MPEG-4 Audio and split PDF file as separate audio files.
For converting your PDF to MP3 or some other audio file, you can simply use File menu and then select Save Audio File.. option. For splitting PDF file and saving it as MP3 or other audio files, you have to use File menu and select Split and Convert to Audio Files… option. For splitting PDF to audio files, you have the option to split it by text block size, by specific keyword, two empty lines in PDF, lines where all letters are capital, etc. This way, PDF will split to audio files as per your needs.
Detailed review of Balabolka software.
NaturalReader
If you are looking for a simple PDF audio reader software, then NaturalReader is a good software to use. Its basic (or free) version is good enough to read the selected text or full PDF file. Just add a PDF on its interface and use the Play button to read PDF text. This software also provides basic playback controls (pause/resume, next, forward, backward, and stop) to read PDF as per your wish. Apart from that, it also lets you change the reading speed (-10 to +10) so reading speed will remain in your control.
One unique feature of this PDF audio reader software is that you can play audio for the text content of an online PDF file or a webpage. So if you have some online PDF, you can enter the URL of that PDF and then command it to read that content automatically. It actually converts that webpage to text format for offline reading and then you can play audio to listen to the text content. Whatever file you add (online or from PC), it is saved on its interface in Library section. So you don’t have to search for the same file again.
You can also save PDF as RTF, ODT, ePub, HTML, and many other formats. So this is an all in one PDF audio reader, converter, and webpage to text converter software.
Note: This PDF TTS software also comes with an option to convert PDF to MP3 file, use spelling checker, etc., but all those features are available in the premium version.
If you want to check more about this software, then you can check the detailed review here.
Conclusion:
These two are best free PDF audio reader software that I came across. No doubt, that first PDF audio reader software is extremely powerful as a lot of useful features come with it. Therefore, I have placed it at #1 position. NaturalReader is also handy as it can help you read PDF as audio file successfully.
