We’re here to help
New to Zen Reader?
The quick start guide covers your first ten minutes, written separately for each kind of user — Family Manager, parent, young reader, or school or tuition teacher.
If you’d rather be shown than read, watch the full 15-minute walkthrough — it goes through setting up, a reading being marked, a spelling list, a worksheet, and the reports.
Help for every screen
The help guides cover each part of the app in detail — reading practice, spelling, word lists, reading reports, your family and roles, and your subscription.
In the app, press F1 — or tap Help in the menu on a phone or tablet — and Zen Reader opens the guide for the screen you are on, already signed in.
The guides are for people with a Zen Reader account, so you will be asked to sign in. Two are readable without one: signing in (including what to do when it fails) and installing and updating.
Contact us
Email us and we’ll get back to you within two business days. There are two addresses, so your message reaches the right people first time.
Technical support and feature requests
Trouble with the app, something not working, or an idea for how Zen Reader could be better.
Sales and customer service
Pricing, subscriptions, billing, your account, or anything else.
When reporting a problem, it helps to include your device (Windows, Android, iOS or macOS), the app version, and a short description of what happened. In the app, the error banners have a Copy details button that gathers this for you.
Ask Jas, right inside the app
Parents and Family Managers can open Ask Jas in Zen Reader for instant, friendly help with setup and account questions. If Jas can’t sort it out, email one of the addresses above and a human will.
Adding books
Import a PDF, or scan a paper book with your camera. Zen Reader reads each page, adds pinyin and a translation, and builds your library. You can fix a single page or re-scan any time in the Book Editor.
Reading sessions
Open a book and read aloud in Practice mode (instant, private feedback) or Scoring mode (saved for progress). Zen Reader marks every character, checks Mandarin tones, and can read the page aloud with karaoke highlighting.
Word games & spelling
Turn a character list into flash cards and a card game with a family leaderboard, and set weekly 听写 spelling lists your child practises by writing, saying or dictation — with a photo of their work marked automatically.
Homework help
Snap a photo of a Chinese worksheet and Zen Reader guides your child with hints rather than answers. You set how much it may reveal.
Progress & reminders
See each reader’s HSK reading level, progress trend and badges, and turn on gentle daily reading reminders and notifications.
Family & devices
Invite family members and sync your library across phone, tablet and computer. Managers can review every reader’s sessions, and a PIN or fingerprint lock keeps settings safe.
Reading aloud on Windows
Zen Reader brings its own Chinese voice, so reading aloud works with nothing to set up. On a small number of Windows PCs that built-in voice can’t start, and you’ll see a note saying there’s no Chinese voice installed. Here’s how to fix it.
Add Chinese to Windows — the language and its voices. Which of the two does the job varies from PC to PC, and on some machines you need both, so do both:
- The language. Settings → Time & language → Language & region → Add a language, and pick Chinese (Simplified, Mainland China). Worth having whatever happens — it also gives you a Chinese keyboard so you can type 中文, and better text recognition when you scan a book page.
- The voices. Settings → Time & language → Speech → Manage voices → Add voices, and pick Chinese (Simplified). On Windows 10 in particular, adding the language often doesn’t bring the voices with it.
Then choose the voice in Zen Reader: open Settings → Read-aloud voices and pick the new Chinese voice. If it isn’t listed yet, restart Zen Reader and look again.
Still silent? Our built-in voice relies on the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable, which most PCs already have. Install it from aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x64.exe, then restart Zen Reader.
Still stuck? Email support@zenreader.co — and if your copy of the app has Settings → About → Share diagnostics, send us that file too. It tells us exactly what happened.
See also What’s new in each version, our System requirements, Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, Disclaimer and how to delete your account.