How to turn a PDF or EPUB into an audiobook on iPhone

There are two ways to turn a PDF or EPUB into an audiobook on your iPhone. You can have an app read the file aloud as you go, with the text in front of you. Or you can turn it into an audio file once and play it anywhere.

Narratorr does both. This guide walks through each step, and says plainly which files won't work.

Check that your file can be read

Narratorr opens EPUB, PDF and TXT files. Before you start, check for two kinds of file.

Books with DRM. Ebooks bought from a store are often locked to that store's own app. Narratorr can't open DRM-protected books, and it tells you why instead of showing blank pages. DRM-free ebooks work, like the ones from Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks, or an EPUB you download from AO3.

Scanned PDFs. Some PDFs are pictures of pages with no text inside. On iOS 26, Narratorr reads pages like these with Apple's on-device text recognition.

If you have a printed book or a handout, you don't need a file at all. In the Library, tap + and choose Scan Pages to use the camera, or Choose Photos to pick photos of pages. Narratorr reads the text on your iPhone, nothing is uploaded, and the result is saved as a book you can edit.

The full list of what opens, and what doesn't, is in the support FAQ.

Get the file into Narratorr

There are three ways in.

1. From the Library. Tap + and import the file. You can pick several at once, including from cloud services like Google Drive and Dropbox.
2. From the Files app. Touch and hold the file, choose Share or Open With, and pick Narratorr. The same works for attachments in Mail and downloads in Safari. If Narratorr isn't in the row of apps, tap More at the end of it.
3. From a website. In Narratorr's built-in browser, when a site offers a book to download, like Download EPUB on AO3, Project Gutenberg or Standard Ebooks, it goes straight into your library. For a PDF you're viewing, choose Add PDF to Library from the browser menu.

Narratorr imports a copy, so the original stays where it was. If you turn on iCloud Sync in Settings, your books and your place in them follow you to your other iPhone or iPad.

Each of these is described on the support page.

Choose a voice

This is the choice that decides whether you finish the book. Narratorr has three speech engines. To switch, open a book and tap the waveform button at the left of the playback bar to open Speech Settings.

• Offline AI runs natural AI voices on your iPhone itself. It's free with no time limit, needs no internet, and keeps reading with the screen locked. It needs an iPhone or iPad with an A15 or M1 chip or newer (iPhone 13 and later). The first time, Narratorr shows the size and asks before downloading: about 111 MB covers all 7 languages.
• Online AI has 45+ premium voices made on Narratorr's servers, so it needs a connection. You get 1 free hour, then it's $2.99 a month or $19.99 a year.
• Device voices are the voices built into iOS. They're free, unlimited and offline, in dozens of languages. You can download enhanced and premium quality versions for free in your iPhone's Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content (or Read & Speak) → Voices, and they appear in Narratorr's voice picker.

For a whole book, try Offline AI first. A ten hour book costs nothing, and it plays on a plane. The 7 languages are English, Spanish, French, Hindi, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese and Mandarin. If your book isn't in the language of your voice, Narratorr notices when you open it and offers to switch to a matching one.

What each engine includes, and the prices, are in the pricing section of the home page.

Make a PDF sound like a book

A PDF is laid out for printing, not for listening. Read aloud as it is, every page would start with the running header and end with a page number.

Narratorr's clean PDF reading skips running headers, footers, page numbers and footnote markers, and rejoins words split across lines. If you ever want the raw text back, turn off Clean Up PDF Text in the reading settings.

Research papers get extra care. Narratorr detects them and reads them in reading order: the left column, then the right, with paragraphs rebuilt across columns and pages. Narration skips citations like (Smith et al., 2020), footnote markers and the reference list. The skipped text stays on the page, shown fainter, so you can still see it.

You choose what narration leaves out in Skip While Reading, in Speech Settings: citations, footnote markers, links, text in brackets or parentheses, references, footnotes, and figure and table captions. Research Paper Layout itself is in Themes & Settings › Customize.

EPUBs need less help. Their chapters follow the book's table of contents, and lists, quotes and tables are read aloud.

The changelog lists everything PDF and EPUB reading does, release by release.

Listen like it's an audiobook

Once a voice is playing, a few settings make the app feel like an audiobook player rather than a text reader.

• Speed. From 0.5x to 2x with Offline AI and device voices, and up to 4x with Online AI.
• Pause Between Paragraphs. In Speech Settings, set the silence between paragraphs from none up to 3 seconds, or keep the voice's natural pacing.
• Sleep timer. Stop after a number of minutes, or at the end of the chapter.
• Chapters. Auto-play carries on into the next chapter, and an Up Next queue lines up books and chapters to play in order.
• Highlighting. Each word is highlighted as it's spoken, so you can glance down and find your place. Mandarin highlights a paragraph at a time.

You don't need to open the app to carry on, either. The Continue Listening widget on your Home Screen or Lock Screen picks up where you left off. In the car, CarPlay shows your recent books and your whole library, chapter by chapter. Or ask Siri: "Resume reading in Narratorr".

If the voice gets a name wrong, select the word, tap Pronounce, type how it should sound, and save. The fix works on every voice and syncs to your other devices, so you only teach it once.

Everything the app does while you listen is listed on the home page.

Save it as an M4B audiobook file

If you want an audio file instead, for an audiobook app or a car without CarPlay, Narratorr can export one.

1. In the Library, touch and hold the book and choose Export as Audio.
2. Pick the whole book or a range of chapters.
3. Choose Chapter Files for one M4A file per chapter, or Audiobook for a single M4B file with chapter markers.
4. Pick Offline AI or a device voice.

Online AI voices can't be exported. The files are saved inside Narratorr on your iPhone. To get them out, touch and hold the book again and choose Exported Audio, then share them to Files, AirDrop or an audiobook app, or delete them.

One thing to know: exports aren't included in iCloud Backup, so save a copy to Files if you want to keep it.

The export steps are also in the support FAQ, under "How do I export audio".

Which way should you choose?

Listen in the app when you want the text in front of you, when you switch between reading and listening, or when you want Online AI's voices. Your place is saved as you go, and iCloud Sync keeps it in step across your devices.

Export when you want a file that plays anywhere, without Narratorr: in another audiobook app, or copied to Files for safekeeping. Choose Audiobook if you want one file with chapter markers, and Chapter Files if your player prefers a folder of tracks.

Both cost nothing with Offline AI or device voices. Narratorr is free on the App Store, and if a file won't open or a voice won't play, the support page covers the common problems.