# Can you enable text-to-speech for PDF documents?



## jonlien (Jun 30, 2010)

I just bought a Kindle 2. I transferred a pdf document from my computer to the Kindle. I really want to use the text to speech feature so I don't need to read the pdf. But it appears you cannot enable it. Please help! Thanks.


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

As far as I know, it's not possible. I think it has something to do with the way that the Kindle sees a .pdf file - more as a snap shot of a page, like a photo, rather than as actual text. Those less technically challenged than I may be able to explain it better!


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

You could try converting it via the Amazon conversion email process (remembering to put "convert" in the subject line).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200375630&#email


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## jonlien (Jun 30, 2010)

Thanks for the quick replies.


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## Martel47 (Jun 14, 2010)

I'll warn you that the conversion stinks if there are any footnotes or other advanced formatting, but TTS does work.

With the PDFs I've submitted for conversion, the footnotes are converted and read as if they are part of the normal page text.


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## mrs_lecavalier (Jun 30, 2010)

You can use calibre to covert it into a .mobi file. I've had good results so far converting .pdfs with it. It's a free program and is VERY useful for the Kindle and other e-readers. Good luck!

http://calibre-ebook.com/


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## Martel47 (Jun 14, 2010)

mrs_lecavalier said:


> You can use calibre to covert it into a .mobi file. I've had good results so far converting .pdfs with it. It's a free program and is VERY useful for the Kindle and other e-readers. Good luck!
> 
> http://calibre-ebook.com/


what sorts of things are you converting? I have seen little difference between Amazon conversion and calibre for the PDFs I use. They are both problematic. I've tried PDF to Word conversion, too, without much success. I was hoping that would work, as it would be easier to deal with misplaced footnotes, but if the PDF hasn't been OCRd, there's no hope.


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## mrs_lecavalier (Jun 30, 2010)

Unfortunately, nothing with footnotes, or complicated .pdfs like that. The good thing about calibre though is it's free, as opposed to Amazon's popping you with a charge. I don't know much about .pdfs, but to remove page titles and page numbers at the tops and bottoms of pages, I use PDF Fill PDF Tool (http://www.pdfill.com/pdf_tools_free.html) to crop unwanted things out. You can crop all of the pages at one time (not one by one), and if you can live without the footnotes, I'm sure you can crop those out, too. I was happy to discover this, because I can't figure out calibre's "remove header/footer" function, and I was sick of lines and sentences being interupted by annoying page numbers after a .pdf conversion.

But again, I know little about .pdfs, just how to convert them!


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

The Amazon service is free if you have it emailed to your PC instead of sent directly to your your Kindle.


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## Martel47 (Jun 14, 2010)

mrs_lecavalier said:


> Unfortunately, nothing with footnotes, or complicated .pdfs like that. The good thing about calibre though is it's free, as opposed to Amazon's popping you with a charge. I don't know much about .pdfs, but to remove page titles and page numbers at the tops and bottoms of pages, I use PDF Fill PDF Tool (http://www.pdfill.com/pdf_tools_free.html) to crop unwanted things out. You can crop all of the pages at one time (not one by one), and if you can live without the footnotes, I'm sure you can crop those out, too. I was happy to discover this, because I can't figure out calibre's "remove header/footer" function, and I was sick of lines and sentences being interupted by annoying page numbers after a .pdf conversion.
> 
> But again, I know little about .pdfs, just how to convert them!


I'll check that out. I keep the original PDF file, so I can live without footnotes for reading purposes.

And I never pay for file conversion. Love that free.kindle.com address!


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## mrs_lecavalier (Jun 30, 2010)

I actually didn't know that it was free if it was sent to your computer, I just assumed they charged for everything.


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