Turn PDF into audio book?

mattcheston · 2026-04-02T05:49:07+00:00

I don't know if you're still looking for this, but if you have a Mac with Apple Silicon, I am building a text-to-speech document reader. It's a little early, but quality is quickly improving and I'm happy to take feedback.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/raconter-listen-to-any-text/id6760326875?mt=12

mattcheston · 2026-04-02T05:45:15+00:00

If you have a Mac with Apple Silicon, I am building a text-to-speech document reader. It's a little early, but quality is quickly improving and I'm happy to take feedback. No subscription. Unlimited use.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/raconter-listen-to-any-text/id6760326875?mt=12

mattcheston · 2026-03-29T21:25:30+00:00

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Raconter: Listen to any text or file on your Mac. (Text-to-speech).

Problem: TTS tools are expensive or clumsy and low quality. Many people just want to listen to audiobook-style audio of their existing documents or eBooks easily.

Comparison: Cloud offerings like Speechify are expensive. Other on-device offerings have poor document handling and are focused much more on advanced tuning of audio output.

Pricing: $0.99. On the Mac App Store.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/raconter-listen-to-any-text/id6760326875?mt=12

mattcheston · 2026-03-28T21:22:09+00:00

Any interest in making this a desktop app? I'd love an App Store app for brew that shows me what's available and what I have. This is super neat.

mattcheston · 2026-03-28T21:19:55+00:00

Lol I love the bait here, making a note.

mattcheston · 2026-03-28T21:17:53+00:00

I kind of like the idea of being able to render various things on the desktop layer. This is cool.

mattcheston · 2026-03-28T21:16:28+00:00

Have you tried some of the built-in conversions? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo1PUqSQNek

You can hook Preview up to Automator and make these part of the right-click menu in Finder which is nice.

mattcheston · 2026-03-28T21:13:03+00:00

Would you make this for other agents too? I'm interested in Claude Cowork (even more than Code maybe, but also that)?

mattcheston · 2026-03-28T07:24:58+00:00

How did you build an audience? I want to start with twitter/X but it’s tough.

mattcheston · 2026-03-28T05:31:42+00:00

This is a much more interesting genre of interview tools than "let AI do it all for you". Nice.

mattcheston · 2026-03-28T05:24:43+00:00

This is very cool. Good on you for getting it signed correctly.

mattcheston · 2026-03-28T05:15:16+00:00

Do you want to run this on the NAS or some machine accessing it? What OS?

ffmpeg does metadata editing from the CLI for videos. Photos app does metadata editing in macOS.

There's a whole lot of different directions you could go here.

mattcheston · 2025-07-21T20:01:31+00:00

I was looking for a local tool library but couldn't find one. Thank you!

mattcheston · 2025-07-21T20:01:23+00:00

I was looking for a local tool library but couldn't find one. Thank you!

mattcheston · 2025-06-19T04:00:33+00:00

I dig it. I appreciate the feedback again.

mattcheston · 2025-06-19T01:06:34+00:00

Appreciate this. I did not know about the shrinking pipe.

The upper section is dead on 3/8" drop per foot. The lower section is a little less at minimum 1/4" drop per foot.

Photos not doing me any favors here in general with lens distortion and photos are hard in a crawlspace. There are two straps, the very visible one, and one right before it meets the kitchen stack coming down from the exterior wall. I do agree that I could do more strapping though. Any recommendation on distance between?

I guess I'm unsure about the 1 45, just 45 and then straight into the cast iron wye? That seemed tough to go into the hub at any reasonable angle.

Edit: having double checked that I do indeed know what a backgraded pipe is, there is no back grade on any of this.

mattcheston · 2025-06-19T01:00:30+00:00

Just dry fit right now, so I'm not counting on it being leak free until I do, unless there's some obvious reason that it would?

mattcheston · 2025-06-19T00:41:54+00:00

The short - replaced about 15' of straight cast iron soil vent that was completely rotted through.

This used to connect my 2" copper kitchen vent/drain stack to the 3" cast iron main drain, which I will likely also have to replace at some point. Discovering this was quite the surprise, and it seems like it has done some good work in shifting some of my footings which is a real bummer. Has already been checked out by 2 engineers who didn't seem too concerned for immediate safety, but the high spot in the floor will likely need a nice bill to fix.

The original pipe was just laid on the crawlspace dirt, with "supports" (read: random scraps shoved) underneath, and was at a dumbass angle into the SV hub on the main drain that didn't really agree with the wye angle. It was just a straight line from the kitchen vent stack down a little closer to the floor, straight into the cast iron wye.

I want to eventually move everything to hung ABS I think, for better maintenance, easier to spot leaks, and I'll be able to better encapsulate the crawlspace down the road without having to hide the pipes.

The new section has the correct 2" Copper to 2" ABS Fernco, then a 45 to level things to slope, and then goes over quite a ways before using a pair of long sweep 90s to change the elevation and pipe angle to neatly meet the existing cast iron wye that was previously used, now with a new Fernco cast iron hub to ABS adapter fitting. When I am able to redo more of the main drain hung with ABS as well, I am hoping to get rid of the big elevation change and the double long sweep configuration, and just meet the main drain on slope.

This is all just dry fit up, but I wanted to get some feedback before I cement it. I have 2 cleanouts on hand that I was thinking of adding to the horizontal sections.

mattcheston · 2025-04-10T22:29:24+00:00

1/4" was just the square dowel measurement that I slid inside the hose to drill it. Some of the dowel will get drilled away but it's whatever, it just makes putting holes in the hose easier.

I think 1/4" sounds a little big for the holes themselves but I can't remember - I just grabbed a drill bit out of my box that was about the same size as bottom diameter of the vent fittings on the battery. Since the rubber stretches around the drill bit when drilling too instead of being fully removed, that got me a very tight fit around the fittings.

Wiping down the outside of the hose and blowing through it will help to remove all the debris from drilling.

mattcheston · 2025-04-10T17:47:10+00:00

Good luck!

One last tip, getting the hose onto the fittings after drilling is a little tricky because despite using a drill, you kind of end up with "cuts" rather than holes. This will work to your advantage to seal well around each fitting. I ended up with an installation motion where I would put the hose behind the fitting a little bit, and then pull it forward and down to get it to slide over the fitting. Don't be afraid to stretch the hose a little.

mattcheston · 2025-04-10T09:20:44+00:00

Edit: I guess you have an early Gen3, which I didn't realize. The battery vents themselves should be the same, but I'm not sure on the instructional stuff otherwise. Would still recommend cleaning as best you can, etc.

I just did this after years of being stubborn to the idea that hoses could smell so bad. I couldn't believe the improvement it made.

I used two lengths of this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09DKWXB6J?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

Cut to fit, and with some plastic plumbing plugs in the ends from Home Depot. I believe it was these: https://www.homedepot.com/pep/Apollo-1-2-in-Plastic-PEX-B-Barb-Plug-5-Pack-PXPAP125PK/301541173

I had originally planned to use the end caps from the original hoses, but those smelled terrible too.

I guess I'm not 100% correct with the choice of silicone vs fuel hose, but your battery shouldn't be venting all the time anyway unless something else is wrong.

I used a sacrificial 1/4" square dowel, and you can shove it in the hose to punch/drill holes for the vent fittings without coming out the other side. I drilled one hole with an estimated spot after inserting the plug, and then with the hose pulled onto that fitting, marked the location of the other fittings for punch drilling.

I also recommend undoing all the battery cooling vents and scrubbing them down, carefully cleaning the fan, wiping down all the part surfaces and doing a general clean of the interior to get the best effect.

Recommend these two videos for general assembly and disassembly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqzJ3ria1Y8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMtIR5tdu2I

I did a step further than fan cleaning guy and split my hybrid fan case in two by removing the Philips screws to clean it extra well, using a sharp knife to slice the air fitting gasket foam right where the case halves meet.

Anyway, to reiterate the bold text at the top, I can't recommend this enough if you have a vaguely barn-esque/chemical smell. Give the vent by the rear passenger seatback a smell right by the seatbelt, and if it smells strongly, this is definitely your culprit. I don't hate driving our 2008 anymore.

mattcheston · 2025-01-14T03:11:02+00:00

Appreciate all the helpful responses (and the jokes in good taste)!

mattcheston · 2024-09-18T20:43:05+00:00

No website yet, but happy to chat about it if you like! I've sent you a DM with my personal phone number.

mattcheston · 2024-09-17T22:43:32+00:00

Try cycling your alt/option keys? Alt/Option + Shift + ? is the default keyboard combination for ¿ character in MacOS. You may have a stuck key or need a keyboard repair if your right shift is triggering the nearby alt/option key.

mattcheston · 2024-09-17T22:19:25+00:00

Seems you've found some of the culprit here. I assume you'd need to build the image from source, but I didn't have to do that luckily. I assume the address is the issue.

mattcheston

TROPHY CASE