Compare · Free read-aloud built into the Edge browser
Aethel Audio vs Microsoft Edge Read Aloud
Read Aloud is built into Microsoft Edge and costs nothing: open a web page or a PDF, press a button, and a natural-sounding voice reads it while the words are highlighted. For articles and prose PDFs it is hard to beat. It reads the text stored in the file as it is, so an equation stored as an image is skipped and a formula made of positioned symbols comes out as loose characters; readers have raised this on Microsoft's own support forum. Aethel is the opposite trade: it costs money beyond the free trial, and it rebuilds the equations, describes figures and adds study tools.
Last reviewed 11 November 2026. Microsoft Edge Read Aloud is a product of Microsoft; this page is not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft. Something out of date? Tell us and we will correct it.
Side by side
What it is
Microsoft Edge Read Aloud: A read-aloud feature built into the Edge browser
Aethel: A study reader for technical books and research papers
Price
Microsoft Edge Read Aloud: Free
Aethel: Free trial of five books and one hour; paid plans by hours of narration
Equations
Microsoft Edge Read Aloud: Reads the text stored in the file; an equation that is an image is not read
Aethel: Each equation rebuilt and read as maths; the printed formula stays on screen
Scanned PDFs
Microsoft Edge Read Aloud: Needs a PDF with selectable text
Aethel: Scanned pages are read with text recognition
Figures and tables
Microsoft Edge Read Aloud: Reads the text it finds, in the order of the file
Aethel: Kept beside the paragraph that cites them, with a spoken description
Study tools
Microsoft Edge Read Aloud: Reading aloud with highlighting
Aethel: Ask about a passage, review cards, highlights, translation
Away from the desk
Microsoft Edge Read Aloud: In Edge, on desktop and mobile
Aethel: Web app on any device, with offline downloads and MP3 export
Price
Microsoft Edge Read Aloud: See Microsoft Edge Read Aloud's current prices
Aethel: Free: 5 books and 1 hour of narration. Pro Reader $4.99/month (6 h, standard voices). Pro $9.99/month (12 h, ElevenLabs voices). Yearly plans save about two months. All plans
Choose Microsoft Edge Read Aloud if…
- • You read web articles and prose PDFs, and want it free.
- • You already use Edge.
- • You only need the text read as it is.
Choose Aethel if…
- • Your PDFs have equations, or are scans.
- • You want figures and tables described.
- • You want to study from the reading: questions, review cards, offline chapters.
Test it on your hardest page
The fairest comparison is your own material. Import the same maths-heavy chapter into both and listen to a page with equations. Here is what Aethel says for a classic:
Attention(Q, K, V) = softmax(QKᵀ / √dₖ)V
Aethel says
Attention of Q, K, V equals softmax of the quantity Q K transpose over the square root of d sub k, times V
Vaswani et al., “Attention Is All You Need”, NeurIPS 2017, equation 1
Questions
Why does Edge Read Aloud skip the equations in my textbook?
It reads the PDF's text layer. An equation stored as an image has no text to read, and one stored as separate symbols has lost its structure. See why text-to-speech skips equations.
Is Edge Read Aloud enough for studying?
For prose, often yes, and it is free. For maths, physics, engineering or statistics, the parts it cannot read are the parts you are examined on.
Other comparisons
Hear your own book this way.
Free to start: five books and an hour of narration, no card needed.