NARRACTOR / FEATURES

Everything it does.
Out loud.

A guided tour of Narractor, from the first click to the last page of a scanned PDF. Scroll, and it shows you.

Your web pages speak, in natural voices, one highlighted sentence at a time.

01 / ANY PAGE

Any article. One click.

Press the N in your toolbar and Narractor’s card opens right on the page: the article, your voice, your speed, and one big button. It finds the story itself and leaves the menus, sidebars and link lists out.

Alt + Shift + R reads or pauses
Or right-click → Read this page
Keeps reading when the card closes

02 / FOLLOW ALONG

Every sentence, lit as it’s read.

The sentence you’re hearing glows lime, and the page scrolls along with it, so your eyes never lose the place. Want to skip ahead? Alt + click any sentence and the voice jumps there.

The page itself is never changed
Alt + click to jump
Highlight and auto-scroll can be switched off

03 / JUST A PART

Select it. Hear it.

Highlight some text and a small menu appears: read just that bit, or start from there and keep going to the end. It’s in the right-click menu too, and on a shortcut.

Read selection: only what you picked
Read from here: to the end of the article
Alt + Shift + S reads the selection

04 / THE PLAYER

A player that stays out of the way.

A slim bar at the bottom of the page, or a compact card with the time left and every sentence in a list. Speed it up to 2× and the voice stays itself: the pace changes, never the pitch.

Speed from 0.5× to 2×
Volume, skip back and forward
Bar or card, your choice

05 / READER VIEW

Just the article. In the dark, too.

Reader view lifts the article out of a busy page: no ads, no pop-ups, just text in the size and font you like, with the sentence being read marked as you go. Light or dark, or as your system is.

Three text sizes, serif or sans
Dark mode, or follow the system
Click any sentence to hear it

06 / VOICES

Voices worth listening to for an hour.

Natural narrators with a character of their own, from a calm documentary voice to a tired late-night detective. Try each one in the voice library before you pick, and vote for whose voice we ask for next.

Hear a sample before choosing
Original narrators, made for listening
Vote for the next voice ↗

07 / PDFS

PDFs, rebuilt for reading.

Open a PDF and Narractor turns it into a clean article: paragraphs joined across lines, columns and pages, headers and page numbers gone. Its own contents become a sidebar, figures and diagrams stay where they were, and equations and code are shown, not read out.

Contents from the PDF’s bookmarks
Go to any page, read from any section
Figures with their captions

08 / SCANS

Even a scan reads.

A scanned PDF is only pictures of pages. Narractor reads the words off them, right on your computer, and puts them through the same rebuilding, so a photocopied chapter sounds like any other article.

Text recognised on your device
Works page by page in mixed PDFs
Password-protected PDFs open too

09 / LANGUAGES

Ten languages, spotted on sight.

Narractor recognises the language from the text itself, even when the page says otherwise, and reads it in that language. If it can’t speak one yet, it tells you plainly instead of guessing.

English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean
German, French, Russian
Portuguese, Spanish, Italian

10 / FAST & PRIVATE

Speaking in a moment. Never wasteful.

The voice starts in well under a second and stays a little ahead of you, without gaps between sentences. Only what you actually listen to is turned into speech. Your settings stay in your browser, and scanned pages are read on your own computer.

No account needed
Pause as long as you like
Jumping back costs nothing: heard sentences are kept

thequietpost.com/library-by-the-riverN

The library by the river

By Ada Lin · 4 min read

The library by the river opens every morning at nine. Many visitors come early to get a seat by the window. In winter it is especially quiet there.

People read newspapers, write letters or simply look at the water.

Narractor×

NThe library by the riverthequietpost.com · 4 min

DocumentaryDeep · Calm

Read this page

The library by the river

By Ada Lin · 4 min read

The library by the river opens every morning at nine. Many visitors come early to get a seat by the window.

In winter it is especially quiet there. People read newspapers, write letters or simply look at the water.

In the evening the library closes at six. The last guests slowly walk home along the river.

Nobody quite remembers when the reading room first opened. Some say it was a boathouse once.

Alt + click

The library by the river

By Ada Lin · 4 min read

The library by the river opens every morning at nine. Many visitors come early to get a seat by the window. In winter it is especially quiet there.

People read newspapers, write letters or simply look at the water.

The library by the river

In winter it is especially quiet there. People read newspapers, write letters or simply look at the water.

In the evening the library closes at six.

NarractorThe library by the riverthequietpost.com1.0×1.25×1.5×2.0×

Narractor2:41 left

The library by the river opens…
Many visitors come early…
In winter it is especially quiet…
People read newspapers…

THE QUIET POSTNewsCultureSportOpinionSubscribe

CITY LIFE

The library by the river

The library by the river opens every morning at nine. Many visitors come early to get a seat by the window.

In winter it is especially quiet there. People read newspapers, write letters or simply look at the water.

Narractorthequietpost.com · 4 min readExit reader

The library by the river

The library by the river opens every morning at nine. Many visitors come early to get a seat by the window.

In winter it is especially quiet there. People read newspapers, write letters or simply look at the water.

In the evening the library closes at six, and the last guests walk slowly home along the river.

Voice libraryOriginal narrators

DocumentaryDeep · Calm

StorytellerWarm · British

NoirLow · Raspy

Next voice: vote now →

Narractorriver-report.pdf‹ 234 of 12 ›Read aloud

CONTENTS1. Opening hours2. Visitors3. The reading room4. Results

3. The reading room

Most visits last under an hour, and the window seats fill first.

Figure 2. A visit, from door to window seat.

P = 1 − Σ ^{λ^k}⁄_k! e^−λ

visits = count(day) / hours

Narractorold-chapter-scan.pdfScanned · read on this device

THE RIVER LIBRARYIII. The Reading RoomThe library by the river opens everymorning at nine. Many visitors comeearly to get a seat by the window. Inwinter it is especially quiet there.People read newspapers, writeletters or simply look at the water.In the evening the library closes atsix, and the last guests walk slowlyhome along the river.— 34 —

Recognising the text on page 3 of 9…

III. The Reading Room

The library by the river opens every morning at nine. Many visitors come early to get a seat by the window. In winter it is especially quiet there. People read newspapers, write letters or simply look at the water.

In the evening the library closes at six, and the last guests walk slowly home along the river.

Page number and running header left out

Hello

Detected: English

English中文日本語한국어DeutschFrançaisРусскийPortuguêsEspañolItaliano

Nederlands? “Narractor can’t read Dutch yet.” Honest, not gibberish.

~0.3 sto the first words

The article

Heard, kept for jumping backReady, about 45 s aheadNot made until you get there

No accountSettings stay in your browserScans read on your device

TRY THE SHORTCUTS

Your keyboard already knows it.

Press them here: the keys light up as you do.

Alt+Shift+RRead or pause the page

Alt+Shift+SRead the selected text

Alt+clickJump to a sentence

EscClose Narractor’s card

All of that, for every page.

Narractor is coming to Chrome and Firefox. Until then, pick the voice we ask for next, or tell us what you’d like it to do.

Vote for a voice ↗Share an idea ↗

Everything it does.Out loud.

Any article. One click.

Every sentence, lit as it’s read.

Select it. Hear it.

A player that stays out of the way.

Just the article. In the dark, too.

Voices worth listening to for an hour.

PDFs, rebuilt for reading.

Even a scan reads.

Ten languages, spotted on sight.

Speaking in a moment. Never wasteful.

Your keyboard already knows it.

All of that, for every page.

Everything it does.
Out loud.