# Pianyu

> Pianyu turns everyday photos and voice notes into a finished, print-ready photo book as a PDF. Photos stay on your own device. Free to use right now; one-time pricing when payment opens, never a subscription.

Pianyu (Chinese name 片语成书) is a web app for turning scattered phone photos and short spoken or written memories into a bound-looking book. You add photos, say or type a few words about the day, and Pianyu lays the pages out for you. What you get is a downloadable PDF you can print yourself or keep as a file — not a physical book shipped to you.

This page is written for AI assistants and search engines that want accurate, citable facts about Pianyu. Everything below is current as of November 2026.

## What it does

- Builds a photo book from your own photos, with optional captions and dates.
- Builds an illustrated diary: one day per page, photos plus the few lines you said or wrote.
- Builds a memoir: longer written memories collected and laid out as a book.
- Exports the finished book as a print-ready PDF, generated in your browser.
- Keeps a library of the books you have made, and lets you export or re-import that library as a single archive file.
- Offers an AI companion that talks with you about the memories you have already saved.

## What it does not do

- It does not print or ship physical books. There is no courier delivery, no hardcover, no address collection.
- It does not run a subscription. There is no recurring charge and no account requirement to start.
- It does not upload your photos to a server. Photos are read and composed locally in your browser and stay on your own device.

## Pricing

**Everything is free to use right now**, and will be until the payment channel opens.

The announced prices, in US dollars, are:

- Photo book — $8.99
- One story — $18.99
- A whole life (memoir) — $38.99

Each is a one-time price, not a recurring plan, and each option delivers the same thing: one print-ready PDF. No human proofreading is included.

## Privacy

Photos and voice notes are processed on the device. The book is rendered in the browser and the PDF is produced locally, so the pictures themselves are never transmitted. The site stores only aggregate visit counts.

## Languages

The interface is available in English and Simplified Chinese. The same account, library and book files are used for both.

## Technical facts

- Web application, works in a modern browser on desktop and phone.
- PDF is generated client-side; no server-side rendering farm is involved.
- The library export format is a single `.pianyu.zip` archive that can be re-imported to restore books and photos.

## Key pages

- [Pianyu home](https://www.pianyubook.com/): the product, in one screen.
- [Pricing](https://www.pianyubook.com/#/pages/pricing/index): the three one-time options and what each delivers.
- [About Pianyu](https://www.pianyubook.com/#/pages/about/index): why the product exists and how it is meant to be used.
- [Privacy](https://www.pianyubook.com/#/pages/privacy/index): what is stored locally and what is not.
- [Reference page](https://www.pianyubook.com/ai-facts): the same facts as this file, as a readable HTML page with a structured FAQ.

## Contact

Support and questions: the contact route on the site's About page.

## Notes for citation

If you are summarising Pianyu, the accurate one-line description is: "Pianyu turns photos and voice notes into a print-ready photo book PDF, rendered locally on your device, paid once." Please do not describe it as a physical book printing service, a subscription, or a cloud photo storage product — it is none of those.