make-audiobook

Convert ebooks and documents into audiobooks using Piper TTS — locally, privately, and free.

Installation | CLI Guide | GUI Guide | Vision

Important

Input files must be DRM-free. This tool cannot process DRM-protected ebooks (e.g., Kindle .azw, Adobe DRM .epub). Use DRM-free sources or legally remove DRM from files you own.

Features

• Local processing — no cloud services, no data leaves your machine
• GUI and CLI interfaces
• Converts epub, docx, txt, md, html, pdf to MP3
• Batch processing multiple files
• ID3 metadata tagging (author, title, track numbers)
• Voice browser to download from 100+ Piper voices
• Interactive or random voice selection
• Adjustable speech speed

Quickstart

Install (macOS)

# GUI application (includes CLI)
brew install --cask tigger04/tap/make-audiobook

# CLI only
brew install tigger04/tap/make-audiobook

Install (NixOS / Nix)

nix run github:tigger04/make-audiobook

See the Installation Guide for Linux, Windows, and manual installation.

GUI

Launch from Applications, or:

make gui

1. Drag files onto the window
2. Select a voice
3. Click "Convert to Audiobook"

Full GUI Guide

CLI

# Convert with interactive voice selection
make-audiobook mybook.epub

# Random voice
make-audiobook mybook.epub --random-voice

# Batch processing with high-quality voices
make-audiobook chapter*.txt --random=high

# Adjust speed (higher = slower, default 1.5)
make-audiobook mybook.epub --length_scale=2.0

Full CLI Guide

Supported Formats

Input	Output
.epub	.mp3
.docx
.txt
.md
.html
.pdf

Dependencies

• Piper TTS — neural text-to-speech
• FFmpeg — audio encoding
• Pandoc — document conversion
• PySide6 — GUI framework (LGPL)
• fzf — interactive voice selection (CLI)
• fd — fast file finder

Make Targets

Target	Description
make install	Install CLI dependencies
make install-gui	Install GUI dependencies and default voices
make gui	Launch the GUI
make test	Run all tests
make test-gui	Run GUI tests
make lint	Run linters (Ruff, ShellCheck)
make clean	Remove build artefacts
make release	Tag, build, and push a release
make help	Show all targets

Project Structure

Path	Description
make-audiobook	CLI executable (bash)
make-audiobook-gui	GUI launcher script
piper-voices-setup	Voice installation script
gui/	PySide6 GUI source code
tests/gui/	GUI test suite (264 tests)
docs/	Documentation
homebrew/	Homebrew formula and cask
flake.nix	Nix flake for NixOS/nix-darwin
scripts/	Build scripts (macOS .app bundle)
resources/	App icon and assets
Makefile	Build targets

Documentation

Document	Description
Installation Guide	Setup for macOS, Linux, NixOS, Windows
CLI Usage	Command-line options and examples
GUI Usage	Visual interface walkthrough
Project Vision	Goals and design philosophy
Implementation Plan	GUI architecture and phasing

License

MIT — Copyright Tadhg Paul