Lectern: EPUB & PDF Reader

Hofstack

About this app

Listen while you read, in one ebook reader.

Offline AI voices read EPUB books and text PDFs aloud with text to speech, highlighting the spoken sentence.

Download a voice once, then listen offline. No Lectern account, and by default your books and notes stay on your device.

🎧 Listen while you read

Choose a natural voice, press play and follow the highlighted sentence. Offline TTS voices (Piper, Supertonic, Kokoro) run on your phone after a one-time download of about 27 to 350 MB, or use an Android system voice if your phone has one for the book's language.

• Sentence highlighting in EPUB, MOBI, AZW3, FB2, TXT and text PDFs
• Voices for 32 languages, picked per language or left to Auto, depending on your phone and on the book's language being known
• Speed up to 3x, sentence pauses, narration styles, pronunciation fixes
• Lock screen and Bluetooth controls, screen-off play, resume where you stopped
• Link an audio file to a book, with M4B chapters. Only EPUB3 read-along books follow their recording; not an audiobook app

📄 Read PDFs aloud on the original page

Hear a text PDF while the spoken sentence is marked on the printed page, or switch to reflowed text.

🌙 Made for evenings

• Sleep timer: stop now, after the sentence or the chapter, with a bookmark where you were last awake
• Bedtime profile: dark page, warm tint, dimmed light
• 8 built-in background sounds

📚 One app for your ebooks and comics

EPUB, EPUB3, KEPUB, PDF, MOBI, AZW, AZW3, PRC, FB2, FBZ and TXT. Comics and manga in CBZ, CBR, CB7 and CBT.

✍️ Comfortable reading

• One-tap profiles: Standard, Bedtime, Dyslexia and Focus
• OpenDyslexic dyslexia font, serif, sans and monospace; spacing, margins, hyphenation, drop caps
• 7 colour themes from Light to Black, or your own colours
• Focus tools: a line band while scrolling; pacer, sentence focus and RSVP speed reading (off with reduce motion or e-ink, paused during narration)
• E-ink mode, automatic on devices such as Boox and Meebook
• Right-to-left reading for Arabic

🔖 Highlights and notes

• 5 colours, across paragraphs and in tables, with notes; exact-page bookmarks; quote cards to share
• Export to Markdown or JSON. Import Kindle highlights (My Clippings.txt) for books in your library: in EPUB, MOBI and FB2, matched passages become highlights, the rest notes

🗂️ Your library, your storage

• Add folders without a storage permission; files stay put. Send books over Wi-Fi from your computer, or share a file
• Project Gutenberg built in, plus Calibre-Web, Storyteller or any OPDS catalogue (EPUB downloads)
• Collections, series, reading status, filters, cover search

☁️ Sync and backup, no Lectern server

Sync position, bookmarks, highlights and reading time through your own Google Drive folder. Devices need the same book file and your cloud app; sync runs while Lectern is open, not instantly. Or back up your reading data, not the book files, for your next phone.

📈 Stats, dictionary and vocabulary

• Streaks, daily goals, charts, a yearly heatmap, 3 widgets
• Offline English dictionary on long-press, also while listening; import your own per language (Lectern's format)
• Vocabulary trainer with spaced repetition and CSV export; saved words stay on one device

🌍 10 app languages

English, Dutch, German, French, Italian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi and Indonesian.

ℹ️ Good to know

• Books with DRM (most Kindle, Kobo and Google Play purchases) cannot be opened. Password-protected PDFs do not open
• Kokoro and Supertonic need a 64-bit phone, the largest packs a fast one. For Chinese, pick Kokoro yourself. Most Supertonic languages are not yet reviewed; the app marks them
• Reading aloud needs real text: scanned PDFs and comics are not read aloud (no OCR)
• Highlights and notes need reflowable text, so not on original PDF pages or in comics
• Online only for downloads, catalogues, cover and book info lookup, sync, your own servers and system voices marked cloud

Read. Listen. Follow along.

Ratings and reviews

the app look solid. my only suggestion is to allow users to import there own audio files not necessarily synchronisation is needed just open pdf side by side audio and be able to control both Edit: Found the option. A little hidden🙃 Edit2: Please add dictionary kind of think select a word instantly find its meaning Edit3: found it. very awesome app

omg.. this app is so good and everything I have ever wanted. The only feature I want is If I can see all my saved words at once like in a list format.

literally mogs any tts reader...got all natural voices no ads ...ui interface lowkey better than anything ive seen...kokoro and piper voice should be enough for the best narration ....all this for FREE

What’s new

📚 Series your way: make your own, add books, set each number.
⏭️ Up next: finish a book and the next part is ready to play.
🔊 Voice boost makes quiet voices louder (Audio tab).
✨ Smoother everywhere: sheets glide away, no flicker.
📖 Pages fit every screen, cutout and rotation.
🎧 After rotating, voice and scroll keep your place.
🎙️ Kokoro stays available on fast phones.
☑️ Select all books at once; re-adding a folder scans only new books.