lucid
lucid is a Chrome extension in open beta that provides private, on-device reading of documents using neural text-to-speech. It processes PDFs, scanned textbooks, Markdown files, plain text, and saved HTML locally, without uploading content to external servers. The extension includes 28 American and British English voices, live paragraph and sentence tracking, and a clean reading view. It also features local OCR for printed scanned documents, chapter detection, and suppression of headers, footers, and figures. Annotations such as highlights, comments, and notes are stored locally and not written back to the original file. A one-time download of a neural voice model is required, but document content is not transmitted during that process. The beta is free and does not require an account.
- Category
- Books
- Pricing
- Free
Problem solved
lucid solves the need for a private, offline-capable document reader that converts text and scanned pages into spoken audio with guided visual tracking, without sending sensitive documents to cloud services.
Use cases
- Listening to academic papers and reports while commuting
- Reading scanned textbooks with OCR and neural voices
- Following along with highlighted text during audio playback
- Privately reviewing confidential documents without internet upload
- Assisting users with visual impairments or reading difficulties
- Consuming long-form articles and Markdown notes hands-free
Audience
- Researchers
- Hobbyists
- Business Users
- Content Creators
Pros
- All processing happens locally, ensuring document privacy
- No account or sign-in required
- Supports PDF, Markdown, plain text, and saved HTML
- Built-in OCR for scanned printed documents
- Live reading guidance with paragraph, sentence, and word tracking
Cons
- OCR limited to clear, upright printed English; no handwriting support
- Complex layouts and heavily damaged scans may not process well
- Neural speech requires a one-time model download
- Highlights and notes are not saved to the original document
- Only English voices available (American and British)
Official website: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/lucid-%E2%80%94-private-document/imnjpkmelbjbnlkfgjkdinpjmdmdagoh?authuser=0&hl=en
Canonical LambdaBase page: https://www.lambdabase.com/tools/lucid