Free PDF to podcast tool

Convert a PDF to a Podcast

Upload a PDF and get a two-host episode that talks it through: a report, a research paper, a book chapter or class notes. Pick the length and how the hosts sound, check the script, then download the MP3.

Drop a PDF here or click to choose PDF up to 10 MB

Free to try · 5 free minutes · No credit card. You'll review the script before any audio is made.

Upload a PDF, Get a Two-Host Episode

Upload the PDF

Drop in any PDF up to 10 MB. Text PDFs and scans both work.

Pick length and tone

Podcast Conversation is preset. Change the template for a different tone, and set the length (up to 10 minutes, 2 on the free trial) and language.

Check the script

Two hosts talk through the main points. Edit any line before the audio is made.

Listen and share

Download the MP3, share a link, or publish it to Spotify and Apple Podcasts with your RSS feed.

Pick the Length and the Hosts' Tone

A 40-page report doesn't have to become a 40-minute episode. Pick how long you want to listen in the length menu, and the hosts cover the most important parts in that time. The template decides how they talk about it. Podcast Conversation is preset; these work well for documents too:

Podcast Conversation

Two hosts discuss the PDF like a regular podcast, with questions, examples and a bit of banter. Best for reports, articles and books.

Explainer & Summary

One host explains, the other asks what a listener would ask. Best for study material and technical documents.

ELI5 (explain it simply)

No jargon, everyday comparisons. Best for research papers, legal or medical documents you need to understand fast.

3-Minute Paper & Report Blitz

The key points in about three minutes, like a news brief. Best for long reports and meeting packs.

Heated Debate

The hosts take opposite sides on the PDF's main claim. Best for proposals, policy papers and opinion pieces.

Free trial episodes are up to 2 minutes; paid plans go up to 10. You can also change the voices (hundreds to choose from), the language (over 100) and the number of speakers in the studio.

What Works Well in a PDF (and What Doesn't)

Works well

Reports, whitepapers and research papers with a clear argument
Book chapters, lecture notes and study guides
Newsletters, articles and blog posts saved as PDF
Tables and charts: the hosts describe what they show
Clean scans of printed pages

Needs a little help

Very long PDFs: split out the chapter you want, or name it in the text box
Forms and spreadsheets: lots of numbers and few sentences make for thin audio
Handwriting and blurry phone photos: parts may be misread
Password-protected PDFs: remove the password first
Word files: save as PDF, then upload

Want the step-by-step version with tips for each kind of document? Read the guide to converting a PDF to a podcast.

Example: A Research Paper Turned into a Podcast

Here is the opening of an episode made from Attention Is All You Need (Vaswani et al., 2017), the 15-page paper that introduced the Transformer. Friendly chat tone. The hosts skip the maths and keep the idea.

Sample Script (2 speakers)

Maya: Today's paper is the one behind almost every AI chatbot you've used. "Attention Is All You Need", from a team at Google in 2017. Leo: Eight authors, fifteen pages, and a title that sounds like relationship advice. Maya: It kind of is! Before this paper, language models read a sentence one word at a time, left to right. Long sentences meant the model forgot the start by the time it reached the end. Leo: So what did they change? Maya: They threw out the word-by-word reading. Their model, the Transformer, looks at every word at once and decides which other words matter for each one. That weighing is what they call attention. Leo: Give me an example. Maya: "The trophy didn't fit in the suitcase because it was too big." What's "it"? Leo: The trophy. Maya: Right, and attention is how the model links "it" back to "trophy" instead of "suitcase". It does that for every word, in parallel, which also made training much faster on GPUs. Leo: And the results? Maya: Better translation scores than anything before it, at a fraction of the training cost. The bigger story came later: GPT, BERT and today's assistants are all built on this design.

Want your own version? The AI writes a fresh script and casts a voice for every speaker. Make a New One Like This →

Converting papers often? See research paper to podcast for tips on dense academic PDFs.

PDF to Podcast FAQ

Is the PDF to podcast converter free? +

Yes. You can try it without an account, and the free trial includes 5 minutes of audio with no credit card. Free episodes are up to 2 minutes each, which is enough for a summary of the main points. Paid plans make episodes up to 10 minutes.

Does it work with scanned PDFs? +

Usually, yes. The AI reads the page images as well as the text layer, so clean scans of printed pages work. Handwriting, faint photocopies and pages photographed at an angle come out less reliably. If a scan fails, export the pages as images or paste the text instead.

How large can the PDF be? +

Up to 10 MB per file. For a long book or a 300-page report, split out the chapter or section you want, or tell the hosts what to focus on (for example "only chapter 4" or "skip the appendix"). One episode covers a document best when it is a few pages to a few dozen pages long.

Is my PDF private? +

ZenMic does not save your PDF. It is sent to the AI model to write the script and then discarded. The script and audio are saved in your account and stay private unless you choose to publish them.

Can I edit the script before the audio is made? +

Yes. ZenMic writes the script first and shows it to you. Change any line, cut sections, or rename the hosts, then generate the audio.

What languages can the podcast be in? +

Over 100. The PDF can even be in one language and the podcast in another: drop in an English report and get a Spanish or Hindi episode.

Can I turn a PDF into a podcast with one voice instead of two? +

Yes. Pick a one-voice template (Explainer & Summary works well) in the template menu, or change the cast to one narrator in the studio. You can also pick from hundreds of voices for each host.

Turn Your PDF into a Podcast

Upload a PDF, get a two-host episode in a few minutes. 5 free minutes, no credit card.

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