Paper2Audio reads your research papers, ebooks, web articles, and other text to you. Paper2Audio’s text-to-speech technology intelligently skips clutter like page numbers and table data. It summarizes figures, tables, and math so you can focus on what matters. Turn your commute, workout, or walk into productive learning time by listening to your docs hands-free.
Key Features:
- Supports PDFs, webpages, ebooks, .docx, .txt, and copy-pasted text.
- Reads documents to you with summaries of visual elements: summarizes math, code, complex equations, and tables/figures in plain language instead of confusing symbol-by-symbol narration.
- Cuts junk text you don’t want to hear (page numbers, references list, ads, etc.): Skip the clutter and focus only on the meaningful content that matters to your understanding.
- High quality text-to-speech voices: Enjoy natural, engaging voices that make hours of listening comfortable and easy to follow.
- Summarize document option: Get the key insights in minutes when you need a quick overview before diving deeper.
- Add context option: Add term definitions and a background briefing to learn less familiar material.
- Highlighting and notes: Keep track of key text with highlights and add your own notes.
- Familiar UI similar to a podcast or audiobook app: Jump right in with an intuitive interface you already know how to use.
- Table of contents to select a section: Navigate instantly to any section that interests you most without endless scrolling.
- Original document and audio transcript views: Follow along visually when you need to see figures, equations, or specific text references.
- Playback speed control from 0.5x to 3.0x in 0.1x increments: Find your perfect listening pace whether you’re a speed listener or prefer to savor every detail.
Pricing: Paper2Audio is 100% free (up to 56 hours of audio generation per week) with no ads or annoying stuff.
Terms of Use: https://www.paper2audio.com/terms-of-use
Privacy: https://www.paper2audio.com/privacy
View on Google Play StoreFree or paid:
- Free with in-app purchase
Accessibility and User Comments:
In a continuous quest to find a comparable alternative to ElevenReader, my journey led me to Paper2Audio. While the Paper2Audio app has major differences compared to ElevenReader, it has some good features that the latter app lacks.
What I Look for in an E-Reader
For me as a blind person, when it comes to finding a good e-reader, one characteristic is essential. Outside of the ability to read via TTS output with the screen off, the feature I look for is the ability to expose the text to my native screen reader. This allows me to check the spellings of unfamiliar words and names; thus, for me, it is a critical feature of a “good” app. Paper2Audio happens to support this feature.
Upon opening the app for the first time, the onboarding screen consists of four informational pages. These pages can be advanced by swiping from right to left with two fingers.
The first screen shows the app logo, and below that, visual images representing the supported file formats—PDF, HTML, Docx, Text, and E-Pub. A pop-up may appear asking to allow notifications for background playback. Options are “Allow” or “Not Now”.
Each of the four pages has two common elements:
- Try Our Demo Docs: A collection of classic documents. Tapping this opens the demos, with playback controls at the bottom: Forward Article, Skip 10S Backward, Play, Skip 10S Forward, Menu.
- Sign In: Tapping this allows signing in via Google or Apple accounts or signing up.
Whether signed in or after opening “Try Our Demo Docs,” the main layout is as follows:
- Top-left corner: Settings button.
- To the right: Cue announced when moving right.
- Next: Edit button, which allows selecting papers. At the top, Select All is on the left and Done on the right. At the bottom: Mark as Done, Archive, Delete.
- Next: Search Papers button.
- Top-right corner: Add New Paper button.
If in Demo mode (classic files), below the “Add New Paper” button are: Archive, Get Started, Add Your First Document, Try These Samples (the classics).
If signed in, below “Add New Paper” are: Archive, Archive Your Collection (collapsed). The Add Collection button is on the right edge, with text below: “Create a New Collection to Organize Your Documents.” Below that are the classics and any added documents.
Each document has a More Options button. Tapping it opens a menu with: Share Audio, Mark as Done, Archive, Add to Collection, Copy Original Link, Open Original Link, Edit Doc Info, Add Another Mode, Retry Download, Report Issue, Remove. Tapping Remove deletes the paper.
Settings
Tapping the “Settings” button opens the Settings screen. At the top is Cancel, followed by either Sign In / Sign Up if not signed in, or the email address if signed in.
Below are several toggle switches, with the switches on the right of their labels:
- Auto-play next document (on by default)
- Archive Docs when finished (off by default)
- Get Email when Doc is Ready (on by default)
The Theme option follows, defaulting to “System,” with choices: System, Light, Dark. Other items: Send Us Feedback and Learn More link.
If signed in, additional account options appear below the email: Change Password, Sign Out, Delete Account. The Subscription section shows the current plan and an option to upgrade. The Audio Generation Usage section shows used hours and reset schedule. The Copy RSS Feed Link option is also present.
At the end of the Settings screen, the screen reader may announce “Close sheet”, but activating it does not close the window. The Back gesture or Back button must be used.
Adding Your Material
- In the main UI, tap Add New Paper (top-right). This reveals additional options. The “Add” button to the right will say “Disabled” until a document is selected.
- Four tabs appear: Link, File (selected by default), Text, More. Tapping More shows guidance on other ways to add documents.
- Below the tabs, tap the button: Upload PDF, E-Pub, HTML, Docx, or Text file.
- Tapping this opens your device’s internal storage to browse for the file.
- After selecting a file, you return to the previous screen. The file name appears near the top, with a Change File button below it to select a different file.
- Choose how the file should be converted: Short Summary, Long Summary, Full Text with all AI summaries and visual elements.
- Below that, choose voices for Document Voice, Summarize Content Voice, etc. Each drop-down has a Play Voice Preview button above it.
- Tapping a drop-down shows available voices. There is no “Play Voice Preview” next to each name; select a voice, then tap “Play Voice Preview” to hear it. Repeat for all relevant voices.
- When finished, tap the Add button (top-right). Processing time depends on document length.
As a free user, uploads are limited to 100MB, 250 pages for PDF and Docx files, and a limited number of webpage characters.
The app supports English. Brazilian Portuguese, French, Italian, and Spanish are in beta.
If the user selects “Share Audio” from the menu, a link to play the audio is provided. However, sharing the actual audio file is not possible without subscribing.
Accessibility
The app is almost fully accessible, with hardly any unlabeled buttons. There may be one that I haven’t come across.
Screen reader actions are not supported, but navigating the UI elements and performing tasks is possible using a screen reader.
The AI helper, found after tapping the menu while viewing or listening to a paper, is accessible. It allows checking suggestions, such as definitions from the document or other questions, and to ask a question by typing a prompt. Reading AI responses is possible using the screen reader.
The document text, or the summary if generated, is exposed to the screen reader. However, TalkBack readng controls cannot be used to move between headings or links.
One accessibility issue I noticed is the inability to know which items are selected. The screen reader does not report the state of a paper when changed, or when a collection is selected while adding a paper to a collection.
Audio Demonstration
Last Tested App version and Android version:
App version: 1.9.8, Android 16
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