Lexxio Reader
Anything you can read, spoken to you.
Books, articles, documents, and the page in your hand, spoken in a natural voice while the words light up on screen. The voices live on your computer, so nothing you read leaves it.
The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms.
Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing.
A silent preview of the follow-along. In the app, every word that lights up is being spoken.
70,000+ free books
the public-domain classics, built in and ready to play
Runs on your computer
the voices are local; nothing is sent away to be read
Your books stay yours
nothing you import is uploaded
No listening limits
read aloud all day; there is no meter on the voices
How it goes
Bring it in. Press play. Follow along.
From the moment something lands on your shelf to the moment you come back to it.
01Bring it in
Whatever you'd read, on your shelf in one tap.
A link, a photo, a file or a classic: it comes in as a book with a play button, and nothing about it needs a lesson.
- Paste a link and get the article, without the menus and the ads
- Snap a page, a letter or a menu with your phone
- Import an EPUB, PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Markdown, HTML, text or subtitle file, or pull one of 70,000 classics from Project Gutenberg
Snap a page
The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs.
1×02Press play
A voice on your own computer, at your own pace.
Natural voices that download once and run locally, so the text never leaves your machine to be read. Everything you need is on one pill.
- Faster when it's easy, slower when it's dense
- The pitch stays natural at every speed
- Voice, volume and speed, one tap each
1.5×03Follow along
Every word lit as it's spoken. Every character in their own voice.
The sentence being read is washed in colour and the word being spoken lights inside it, and the page keeps up. Dialogue gets cast.
- The narrator keeps one voice; each character gets their own
- The same character, the same voice, every time they speak
- Cast from Lexxio's voices and the ones on your computer
A brown little face, with whiskers, looked out at him from the bank. “Hullo, Mole!” said the Water Rat. “Hullo, Rat!” said the Mole. “Would you like to come over?” enquired the Rat presently.
Narrator · Ellereading04Take it with you
A full-screen player, on your phone or your desk.
Audiobook mode turns any book into a player for the walk, the commute or the dishes.
- A timeline you can scrub, and fifteen-second skips
- Your place synced between your computer and your phone
- Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android
1×Audiobook mode on iPhone. Timeline, fifteen-second skips, your place kept.
05Pick up again
Come back after a week and hear where you were.
Open a book you haven't touched in a while and Lexxio offers a short spoken recap of what has happened so far.
- Written from the pages you've read, up to where you stopped
- Never a word past your place
- Play it, or skip straight back to the page
Previously
The Wind in the Willows
You were here nine days ago · Chapter Two
Mole gave up on spring-cleaning and wandered to the river, where he met the Water Rat. They spent the afternoon in Rat's boat, and Mole has decided to stay a while.
Voices
Hear each one before you choose.
Every language Lexxio supports has a voice picked for it, and you can add the voices already on your computer, including the HD voices your system can install. These are the English ones, every one rendered by the app itself.
Pasting a link, snapping a page and spoken recaps use Lexxio's servers to fetch the page, read the photo or write the recap. The voice that reads it to you is still yours.
OpheliaPreferred
ErinWarm and expressive
BrookeBright, lively, emotive
ClaireSoft, hushed, close to the mic
LaurenSmooth and even
DanaClear and composed
MeganFriendly and steady
TessaNeutral, matter-of-fact
JadeBright and upbeat
BruceDeep and measured
GrantStrong, a little gravelly
ColeLight and playfulElleWarm, unhurried British
PoppyGentle, softly spoken
EdwardDeep, formal British
RupertA storyteller's cadence
BarbaraEnglish · US
SummerEnglish · US
AllisonEnglish · UK
RyanEnglish · US
KristinEnglish · US
JohnEnglish · US
NormanEnglish · US
BryceEnglish · US
AmyEnglish · US
JoeEnglish · US
MikeEnglish · US
KusalEnglish · US
SamEnglish · US
HaileyEnglish · US
CarterEnglish · US
JennyEnglish · UK
AlbaEnglish · UK
AlanEnglish · UK
CallumEnglish · UKThe same sentence in each voice, rendered by the Lexxio app on a Mac, exactly as it reads.
Text to speech
A text-to-speech app that runs on your computer.
Read-aloud for the books, articles and documents you already have. No account on a cloud voice service, no per-word fees, no upload.
Text to speech for EPUB, PDF, Word and the classics
Import a book or document you own, EPUB, PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Markdown, plain text or subtitles, or pull one of 70,000 public-domain books from Project Gutenberg, and press play. Any of it becomes an audiobook with the text still on screen.
Listen to web articles
Paste a link and the article is read aloud without the menus, ads and comments. Long reads become something to listen to on a walk.
A read-aloud app for dyslexic readers
Word-by-word highlighting, the OpenDyslexic and Atkinson Hyperlegible typefaces, a high-contrast mode and adjustable speed, built in rather than bolted on.
Ready when you are.
Free for the first 30 days, no card needed. Then $8.99 a month for everything on this page.
Who it's for
Made for people who'd rather listen.
Students
Reading lists that actually get read. Play a chapter at speed and follow along, or let it read while you take notes.
Dyslexic readers
Hearing the words as they light up keeps your place for you. OpenDyslexic, Atkinson Hyperlegible and a high-contrast mode are built in.
Commuters and cooks
Audiobook mode, a timeline and skips, for the hours when your hands are busy.
People who read for work
Reports, long articles and documentation, read aloud while you do something else.
How it compares
Lexxio Reader vs. Speechify and NaturalReader
Speechify and NaturalReader rely primarily on cloud AI voices, with their most advanced voices reserved for paid tiers. Lexxio Reader takes a different approach: speech is generated on your own computer. The differences that follow from that are the ones that matter to someone who listens a lot.
Where speech is generated
- Lexxio Reader
- On your computer
- Speechify
- Mostly in the cloud
- NaturalReader
- Mostly in the cloud
Internet needed to generate speech
- Lexxio Reader
- No
- Speechify
- Generally, for AI voices
- NaturalReader
- Generally, for AI voices
Your text is sent to a server to be read
- Lexxio Reader
- No
- Speechify
- Yes, for cloud voices
- NaturalReader
- Yes, for cloud voices
Listening offline
- Lexxio Reader
- Any book, any time
- Speechify
- Downloaded audio, paid plans
- NaturalReader
- Varies by plan
Word-by-word highlighting
- Lexxio Reader
- Yes
- Speechify
- Yes
- NaturalReader
- Yes
Automatic character voices
- Lexxio Reader
- A voice per character
- Speechify
- Not advertised as a standard reader feature
- NaturalReader
- Limited: two alternating readers
Natural voices
- Lexxio Reader
- All included
- Speechify
- Premium tier
- NaturalReader
- Paid tiers
Free 70,000-book library built in
- Lexxio Reader
- Yes
- Speechify
- No
- NaturalReader
- No
Price
- Lexxio Reader
- $8.99/mo, or $89.99/yr
- Speechify
- Premium: $29/mo, or $139/yr
- NaturalReader
- Lite to Pro: $13.90–$25.90/mo, or $79–$159/yr
Questions
Lexxio Reader, answered.
Does Lexxio Reader work offline?
For reading aloud, yes. Voices download once and synthesize on your computer, so a downloaded voice reads with no connection at all. Pasting a link, snapping a page and spoken recaps need one, since a server fetches the page, reads the photo or writes the recap.
Is my text sent to a server to be turned into speech?
No. The voice runs on your own machine, and the text you listen to never leaves it to be synthesized. That is the main difference between Lexxio Reader and a cloud text-to-speech service.
Can it read PDFs?
Yes, any PDF with a text layer, which is most of them. A scanned PDF is a photo of a page, and those you snap: the page is read from the image. Alongside PDF it imports EPUB, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Markdown, HTML, plain text and SRT or VTT subtitles, plus pasted text, pasted links and Project Gutenberg books.
Does it highlight the words as it reads?
Yes. The sentence being read is washed in color and the word being spoken lights up inside it, and the page scrolls, or turns in page mode, to keep up with the voice.
Which languages can it read?
Every language Lexxio supports has a voice picked for it, and you can add the voices already on your computer, including the HD voices your system can install. Pick a different voice for each language and hear it before you choose.
Does it work on my phone?
Yes. Lexxio Reader runs on Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android, and your place in a book syncs between your computer and your phone.
How is Lexxio Reader different from Lexxio Learn?
Reader is the reading app without the lessons: listening, in a language you already speak. Learn and Pro add translation, Side by Side read-aloud in two languages and the courses, for learning a language.
How much does it cost?
$8.99 a month or $89.99 a year, with two months free on the yearly plan. Join during early access and pay $6.99 a month for your first 24 months. The first 30 days are free, and no card is needed to start.
The plan
One plan. Everything on this page.
Lexxio Reader is $8.99 a month, or $89.99 a year with two months free. Join during early access and pay $6.99 a month, or $69.99 a year, for your first 24 months.
Free for the first 30 days. No card needed.