Audio Book Reader

A small Flask web app that extracts text from a selected range of PDF pages and reads the text aloud in the browser.

What It Does

• Upload a PDF from the browser.
• Choose a start page and end page.
• Extract text from those pages with PyPDF2.
• Display the extracted text in a retro-styled reader.
• Read the text aloud with the browser Web Speech API.
• Change reading speed and volume before starting playback.

Tech Used

• Python
• Flask
• PyPDF2
• HTML
• CSS
• JavaScript
• Browser Web Speech API

Project Structure

audio_book/
  main.py
  requirements.txt
  templates/
    index.html
  static/
    style.css
    script.js
    fonts/
    images/

How To Run

Create and activate a virtual environment:

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

Install the dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Start the Flask app:

python main.py

Open the local site:

http://127.0.0.1:5000/

How The App Works

Flask receives the uploaded PDF and page numbers from the form in templates/index.html.

main.py uses PyPDF2 to extract text from the selected pages, then sends that text back into the page as extracted_text.

static/script.js handles the browser controls. It reads the displayed text aloud, stops playback, and applies the selected speed and volume.

static/style.css contains the retro window design, custom font, toolbar, reader box, and control styling.

Notes

The browser speech controls apply speed and volume when a new reading starts. Changing speed or volume while speech is already playing may not affect the current reading until playback is restarted.