Listening Can Be Serious Reading
The old objection to audiobooks is that you can't underline. In VocaRead, the text is right there, highlighted line by line as the voice reads, so you can. Highlights, notes, and bookmarks work while playback continues, sync through iCloud, and export in formats your other tools understand. Since 2.6, you can also share an excerpt straight from the player.
Bookmarks: "Come Back Here"
Tap the bookmark icon in the player to mark the current position. Bookmarks are for places, not passages — the start of a chapter you want to re-listen to, the point where the argument turned. The bookmark list shows them with a snippet of text and jumps to the exact sentence.
Highlights: "This Matters"
Select text in the reading view, or long-press the current line while listening, and choose Highlight. Highlights collect in a sheet per book, in order, with the chapter they belong to. Add a note to any highlight when you want to remember why — a question, a counter-argument, a "use this in the presentation".
Export to Markdown or CSV
From the highlights sheet, tap Export. Markdown gives you a clean document — book title, then quotes as blockquotes with your notes underneath — ready for Obsidian, Notion, Bear, or Apple Notes. CSV gives you a spreadsheet with chapter, position, text, and note, which is what you want for research or a reading log. Either way, the file is generated on the device and goes wherever you share it.
Share an Excerpt
Heard a line worth sending? Long-press it and choose Share. VocaRead builds a clean card with the passage and the book title — something that looks good in Messages or on social media, without screenshots of a UI. Sharing your progress works the same way from the player menu: a card with the cover, how far you are, and how long you've listened. Finished a book? That card says so.
A Simple Method
- While listening, bookmark generously and highlight sparingly. Bookmarks cost nothing; highlights should mean something.
- At the end of a chapter, open the highlights and add notes while the context is fresh. Two sentences each.
- At the end of the book, export as Markdown to your notes app. You now have a summary you wrote yourself.
Works With Any Book
This applies to a novel, a work PDF, a scanned textbook, or a web article — the same tools, the same export. And because progress and annotations sync, highlighting on the iPad in the evening shows up on the iPhone the next morning. Free classics from Project Gutenberg are a great place to practice.
Download VocaRead, play a chapter, and highlight one line. That's the whole habit.