How do I have a PDF read aloud on my iPhone?

Last reviewed: October 20, 2026 · Markdown version

Turn on Speak Screen once, open the PDF in any app, then swipe down with two fingers from the top of the screen and your iPhone reads the page out loud. It is an accessibility setting, not a feature of one PDF app, so it works in Files, Preview, Books or anything else that shows the text. For one paragraph, Speak Selection is quicker; for a calmer full-screen view, Accessibility Reader. A scanned PDF with no stored text is the one case to check first.

Speak Screen: the whole page

Apple's path: Settings, Accessibility, Read & Speak, then "Tap Speak Screen, then turn on Speak Screen to have iPhone read all text on the screen." To start it: "Swipe down with two fingers from the top of the screen." A controller appears that lets you "pause speaking, adjust the rate, navigate forward or back to the content you want to hear", and you can also ask Siri to "Speak screen" (Hear iPhone speak the screen, selected text, and typing feedback, iPhone User Guide, read 20 October 2026). Apple notes it works "Even if VoiceOver is turned off".

Speak Selection: one passage

On the same settings screen, turn on Speak Selection. Then, in the PDF, "Select the text you want spoken, then tap Speak" (the Hear iPhone speak page above). This is the one to use when you only want a clause or a paragraph read out, and it only works where the app lets you select text.

Accessibility Reader: a full-screen reading view

There is also Accessibility Reader, which Apple describes as a way to "read or listen to text in a full-screen view, and customize fonts, layouts, and background colors", usable "with any app on your iPhone". Turn it on under Accessibility, Read & Speak, Accessibility Reader; switch on Autoplay "if you want Accessibility Reader to automatically read text aloud". You can open it with the Accessibility Shortcut, from Control Center, or from the share menu of any app (Read or listen to text in apps with Accessibility Reader on iPhone, iPhone User Guide, read 20 October 2026).

Voice, speed and language

Under Read & Speak, Apple lists Voices ("Choose a voice and dialect"), Default Language, Detect Languages, which lets iPhone "automatically detect and speak multiple languages", Speaking Rate and Pronunciations (the Hear iPhone speak page). If a PDF in another language sounds wrong, check Detect Languages first.

Safari and Books

Safari has its own Listen to Page, but Apple's page describes it for "supported webpages" and does not mention PDFs (Listen to a webpage in Safari on iPhone, iPhone User Guide, read 20 October 2026). Apple Books plays audiobooks, and its page on PDFs covers opening, sharing and marking them up, with no read-aloud option for a PDF (Read PDF documents in the Books app on iPhone, iPhone User Guide, read 20 October 2026). Speak Screen works in both, which is why it is the route we lead with. Opening a PDF in Safari covers getting the file onto the screen in the first place.

When nothing is read

Speech reads the text stored in a file. A scanned PDF is a picture of each page, and the Apple pages above do not say whether Speak Screen reads the words in such a picture. Apple's Live Text article does say text in photos can be spoken: your iPhone "can also speak aloud Live Text with Speak Selection" (Copy and translate text from photos, Apple Support, read 20 October 2026), which covers images rather than PDF pages. If a PDF stays silent, check whether it has a text layer; the Android version of this question is on reading a PDF aloud on Android.