Read a textbook PDF aloud on Mac (without the page clutter)

Short answerSpeak Selection works for a paragraph at a time. For whole chapters, Aloud ($19 once) opens the PDF in a reading window, leaves out headers, footers and page numbers, rejoins hyphenated words, reads scanned pages and resumes where you stopped.

Start with what your Mac already has

1. Turn on Speak Selection. Open System Settings → Accessibility → Read & Speak (called Spoken Content on macOS 14 and 15) and switch on Speak selection.
2. Download a better voice. Choose System voice → Manage Voices and download an Enhanced or Premium voice in your language.
3. Read any selection. Select text and press Option-Esc. Press it again to stop.
4. Set a comfortable speed. Use the Speaking rate slider in the same settings.

Study tips

• Listen once at 1.25x, then reread the hard sections.
• Follow the word highlight to keep your eyes on the line.
• Export a chapter to .m4a for the commute.

Related: text to speech for students and skipping headers and page numbers.

Make it easier with Aloud

Aloud (ours, $19 once per Mac, macOS 14 or later) is built for listening every day:

• PDFs without the noise: Aloud skips running headers, footers and page numbers, rejoins hyphenated line breaks and recognises scanned pages on your Mac.
• Export to audio: save any reading as an .m4a file in your chosen voice.
• Select text in any app and press Control-Option-S (or right-click → Services → Read with Aloud).
• A reading window with a word highlight and click-to-seek, so you can jump to any sentence.
• Speed from 0.75x to 2x, changed mid-sentence, and resume from the last sentence.
• Natural voices: your Mac's Enhanced and Premium voices, the on-device Kokoro neural voice (Apple silicon, macOS 15+), or ElevenLabs/Cartesia with your own API key.
• Private by default: with Apple or Kokoro voices nothing leaves your Mac; no account, no analytics in the app.

Buy Aloud, $19 once   No subscription, no account.