Q4 2025: Expanding Horizons with WithAudio
This post will focus on new features and improvements made to the app. There will be a separate post about non technical works done for WithAudio and how they went.
What is WithAudio?
WithAudio is a one time payment text-to-speech reader app with tones of interesting features. Check it out (after you read this).
The final quarter of 2025 brought some of the most requested features to life. From breaking free of the desktop with the Web Companion (Chrome Extension) to improving PDFs and supporting more languages, WithAudio has become more powerful and accessible than ever.
Here's what shipped.
🌐 The WithAudio Web Companion: Your Browser, Your Audio
The biggest launch of Q4 was the WithAudio Web Companion browser extension, a feature the community had been requesting since day one.
Now you can listen to any webpage using WithAudio's high-quality text-to-speech voices without leaving your browser. No more copying and pasting, no more importing links into the desktop app. Just click, listen, and enjoy.
Why this matters:
- Authenticated content: Read paywalled articles and member-only content that can't be imported into the desktop app
- Preserve context: Keep the webpage's layout, images, and formatting while listening
- Instant playback: Click and start listening—no import delays or extra steps
- Same quality: Uses your purchased voices and the same TTS engine as the desktop app
The Web Companion works seamlessly with the desktop application, communicating through Native Messaging for secure, local processing. Everything still happens on your machine and no data leaves your device.
Want to try it? Get the extension from the Chrome Web Store, and check out the detailed announcement post for more information.
📄 PDF Support: From Good to Great
PDFs have always been challenging for text-to-speech applications. Q4 was all about making PDF support not just functional, but genuinely better by integrating the docling parser. There is a plan to write a blog post about PDF text extraction but it's being postponed until every aspect of PDF parsing is fully satisfactory.
Complete PDF Overhaul:
PDF processing was rebuilt from the ground up:
- Better text extraction that handles complex layouts, multi-column documents, and tricky formatting
- Drag and drop support for PDFs like other file formats, just drop them into WithAudio and the rest is handled automatically
- Large document handling with improved memory management for massive PDFs
What is left to do with PDFs?
While PDF processing has significantly improved, there's still room for enhancement. Planned improvements include:
- Page number preservation so users always know where they are in the document
- Performance processing a PDF file is not the slowest part of WithAudio but feels like the slowest. This needs improvement.
- Stability the docling needs to download a model and its environment to run what is needed for parsing a PDF. This is slow and sometimes gets flagged with AntiVirus solutions on Windows, causing issues for users. Improving this is a very high priority item on the roadmap.
🌍 Going Global: Multi-Language Support
WithAudio is no longer English-only. Q4 brought comprehensive multi-language support, starting with French and laying the groundwork for many more languages to come.
What was added:
- Language-specific text preprocessing that handles the quirks of each language properly
- French language support with native voice quality
Planned additions:
- Intelligent language detection that automatically uses the right processing for each language
- More languages see here for more info
⚡ Build Size
The application size was significantly reduced across all platforms (~30% on each platform). These optimizations mean faster downloads, quicker updates, and less storage space required. All without sacrificing any functionality.
🎨 Other items that worth mentioning
- Responsive Design Improvements
- Automatic and Manual document partitioning
- UI Improvements
- Smarter Text Processing numbers, date, unti handling and smarter sentence breaks
- Bug fixes in Global Capture one of the most beloved features of WithAudio (video)
🔧 Under the Hood: Stability and Reliability
Some of the most important work is invisible but crucial:
Import and Conversion:
- Fixed URL-encoded paths in EPUBs that caused import failures
- Improved PDF converter reliability on Windows
- Better import progress tracking for large documents
- Separated import status handling for clearer feedback
🔒 Privacy-First, Always
Through all these updates, WithAudio maintains its core promise: everything happens locally.
The Web Companion communicates with the desktop app using Native Messaging—a secure, local-only protocol. The content users listen to and their audio files never leave their device.
The Web Companion source code is available on GitHub (not open source) for security-conscious users who want to verify exactly how it works.
🎯 What This Means for You
For New Users:
- WithAudio is now a complete ecosystem—desktop app and browser extension working together
- Multi-language support means more users worldwide can enjoy high-quality TTS
- Better PDF support makes it viable for students, researchers, and professionals
For Existing Users:
- The Web Companion adds a completely new way to use WithAudio in your daily workflow
- Document partitioning gives you more control over large documents
- Performance improvements mean faster launches and smoother operation
For Everyone:
- WithAudio continues to prove that powerful features and privacy aren't mutually exclusive
- No subscriptions, no cloud processing, no data collection—just great software
🚀 Looking Ahead to 2026
Q4 2025 was about breaking boundaries—bringing WithAudio to the web, supporting global languages, and improving PDF handling.
As 2026 begins, the focus is on:
- User feedback WithAudio is being actively developed. Nothing will guide its roadmap more than its users. Email at [email protected]
- More languages and voices to serve the growing international community
- Performance optimizations that make everything faster and smoother
Ready to experience the new WithAudio? Download the desktop app and grab the Web Companion extension to get started!