Questions people ask about Read-Along

Heart, Ember, Moss and Sky are computer voices with illustrative portraits. Voice Wish is how a real creator, with their written consent, can become a voice.

One document a day is free, and you don't need a card. The catch: a free document waits in the normal line. A short one is ready in a few minutes. You get the same voice as Premium, and the whole document is read (up to about 3 hours). Premium has no daily limit, and its documents start first.

Not unless you choose Premium. Free needs no card. Premium is $14.50 a month or $69 a year, and it renews until you cancel. We don't email a reminder before it renews, so note your date. You can cancel any time in Plan → Manage or cancel, with no email or call, and you keep Premium until the end of the time you paid for.

PDF, Word, ePub (without copy protection), RTF, ODT, Markdown, plain text and HTML files, or paste a web link. A Google Docs, Google Slides or Google Drive file link works if it is shared as "Anyone with the link". Uploads can be up to 3 GB. A linked file can be up to 50 MB. A scan or a photo of printed English text works too (.png, .jpg or an iPhone .heic photo, up to 30 pages). Handwriting doesn't. If we can't find any words, it fails and your free document comes back. We skip page numbers, the header or footer that repeats on every page, endnote lists and web addresses, so you hear just the text.

It reads up to about three hours per document, then stops. For a big book, make one read-along for each chapter. Very long files can take longer to get ready.

Your uploaded file is deleted once your read-along is ready. The finished page has a long link that is hard to guess, but anyone you give the link to can open it, so share it only with people you trust. We keep the finished read-along until you ask us to delete it. To tidy the text before it is read aloud we use an AI service (Claude, from Anthropic). Our privacy page says so.

Yes, the audio. Under the chapter list on a read-along, a download button saves it as an MP3 file you can play offline in any player. The page with the highlighted words opens from its link, so it needs a connection: there is no offline mode for the highlighting.

A short document is ready in a few minutes. A long one takes about half as long as it takes to listen: an hour of listening is ready in about 30 minutes. Email sign-ins get the link by email. Phone sign-ins get one text if they tick the box; otherwise it waits under My read-alongs.

Yes. It opens in your phone's web browser. There is nothing to install. There is no app and no browser extension yet.

Yes. On the Teachers page there is a button called "Read with Read-Along". Drag it to your bookmarks bar, then click it on any article to open Read-Along with that page's link filled in. On a phone, copy the link and paste it on Read-Along. It can't open pages that need a login or are behind a paywall.

Small tables are read row by row. Long tables and charts are left out, so look at the page for any figure that matters.

The voice reads English only. It does not translate. You can play a sample on the home page before you sign in.

Many people find that seeing and hearing each word together helps them keep their place. It is a reading aid, not a treatment, and it does not replace a teacher or specialist.

Open Plan, then Manage or cancel. No email or call is needed. You keep Premium until the end of the time you paid for, and you are not charged again.

One file or one web link is one document, however long it is (up to about three hours of audio). Free gives you one a day. If a free document fails, you get that day's document back. A new day starts at midnight Pacific time (California).

If a free document fails, you get that day's document back. If a Premium document fails, we try again on our own and, if it still fails, we tell you why. Write to readalong@woodstockdaily.com if you want your money back and we will look at it. Cancelling stops the next charge.

They are the same Premium. Monthly is $14.50 a month. Yearly is $69 for the year, which works out to $5.75 a month, about 60% less. Both renew until you cancel.

Anyone aged 13 or older.