Reading and Listening

Open a document from the library to read it. The player bar at the bottom reads it aloud and highlights each sentence and word as it is spoken.

Playback

Press Play to start from the current position. OpenReader generates audio a little ahead of where you are listening and keeps it, so:

• the first sentence starts after a short preparation, then playback continues without waiting;
• the bar above the controls shows the whole document, with shaded bands where audio is already generated and can be played instantly;
• pausing, seeking, closing the document or reloading never throws away generated audio. Listening again, or exporting an audiobook, reuses it.

Drag the bar to jump anywhere. After a jump, Undo scrub returns you to where you were. Skip back and forward move one sentence.

While audio is being prepared, the player says so; it only shows as playing when you can hear it.

Browsing while it reads

Scrolling or turning pages yourself stops the reader from following the narration, so you can look around without interrupting playback. The Follow narration button beside the page controls shows whether the reader is following. While it is off, ↩ Return to narration jumps back to the sentence being read and follows again. Tapping a sentence, jumping from the contents, or scrubbing the player also follows again.

Voice

The Voice button in the player opens the voice panel for the current document:

• Pick a voice. Search voices filters a long list. Star a voice to add it to Favorites, then use the Favorites filter to see only those. Favorites are saved to your account for each model.
• Providers that support blending let you select several voices to mix them.
• Model speed changes how fast the voice itself speaks. It regenerates audio from your position.
• Preview selection plays a short sample before you apply it.
• For external providers, expand Custom voice ID to enter a voice missing from the list. Preview it or choose Use voice, then Apply. Closing the panel discards unapplied changes.

Changes in the voice panel apply to this book only. Use default returns the book to your default voice. Set the default voice, provider and model for all documents in Settings → Model & Voice.

Playback speed, the speed button next to the voice button, changes the playback rate instantly and never regenerates audio.

Your own voice

With a Fish Audio provider, or an OpenRouter model that supports voice cloning, Your voices in the voice list offers Create your own voice:

1. Record the passage shown on screen, or Import an audio file. One person speaking evenly for 10 to 15 seconds works best.
2. Review the sample and trim it to between 1 and 15.9 seconds.
3. Name the voice. The Sample transcript is filled with the passage you read; correct it if you said something else. Fish Audio requires it; for OpenRouter it is optional.
4. Confirm you have permission to use the voice, then save it.

The new voice appears under Your voices, where its menu can rename or delete it. Choose it like any other voice, then Save in settings or Apply in the reader. Deleting a voice removes its sample but keeps narration already generated with it.

The sample is stored privately on your OpenReader server and is sent to the provider with each narration request. The provider's usage charges apply.

Reader settings

The settings button in the reader header opens Reader Settings for the current document. Most settings here start from your app defaults and change only this book. A reset icon beside a changed setting returns it to the app default.

Setting	What it does
Language	The language the document is read in. Automatic uses the document's metadata or detected language. The available languages depend on the voice and provider.
Display	PDF and EPUB only. Show the pages / Show the book turns the page layout on or off; off reads the text as flowing sentences. PDFs can show a single page, two pages or continuous scroll. EPUBs can use the app theme.
Typography	Flowing text and EPUB. See Typography.
Highlight appearance	Highlight segment and Highlight words turn highlighting of the spoken passage and word on or off, and set their colors. See Highlights.
Advanced	What is read aloud and how. See Advanced.
PDF Layout	PDF only. Shows the processing status and re-runs layout analysis.

Changing the language or anything under Advanced changes what is spoken. OpenReader asks before applying the change, then regenerates audio from your position. Display, typography and highlight changes never regenerate audio.

Typography

Font family and Text size come first; More typography adds:

• Spacing: line spacing, paragraph spacing and letter spacing, with Compact, Balanced and Open presets.
• Width: how wide the text column is, with Compact, Balanced and Full presets.
• Alignment: Default, Left or Justified.

The reading preview shows the result before you save. With Default / publisher, EPUBs keep the book's own fonts and spacing, and other text uses the app's font. Typography doesn't apply to PDFs shown as pages.

Highlights

Choose a preset (Theme, Amber, Ocean or Mint), or set the segment and word colors and opacity separately. You can turn off the segment highlight and keep the word highlight, or the other way round.

Advanced

Setting	What it does
Citations	Skip reference markers such as [1, 3–5] and (Smith, 2024). Bare numbers and years are still read.
Bracketed text	Skip text in Square brackets, Parentheses or Both.
PDF blocks	PDF only. Choose which detected blocks (headers, footers, footnotes, titles and more) to skip. Show block overlay draws the detected blocks over the page.
Text grouping	Built-in Kokoro only. Piece length sets how much text the model speaks in one pass.
Added pauses	Extra silence Between segments, and for built-in Kokoro Between pieces. Automatic adds none, keeping the voice's natural pauses. Added pauses are included in audiobook exports.
Max segment length	How much text is generated as one piece of audio.

Skipped text stays visible and highlighted words still line up with the audio. The skipping settings are off by default.

App settings

Settings holds the defaults every book starts from:

• Model & Voice: your default provider, model and voice, and the defaults for the Advanced settings above.
• Appearance: the app theme, and the default typography and highlights.
• Reading: whether PDFs and EPUBs open showing their pages, and keyboard shortcuts.

A book you have changed keeps its own setting; everything else follows the defaults.

Contents and bookmarks

• Contents in the reader header lists the chapters or pages. Choose one to go there, or use Find in book to search the text and jump to a match.
• ⋯ → Save bookmark bookmarks the current sentence. Bookmarks lists your bookmarks so you can jump back, rename or delete them.

Your reading position, bookmarks and settings are saved to your account and follow you to other devices.