How to summarize a PDF with AI in seconds
· 4 min read
Get the key points of a long PDF, such as a report, contract or research paper, with a free AI summarizer, in English or 39 other languages.
Long PDFs take time: a 20-page report, a contract, a set of meeting notes or a research paper. An AI summary gives you the main points first, so you know what matters before you read the whole thing, or whether you need to read it at all.
Summarize a PDF in four steps
Short or detailed?
What do you need the summary for?
Choose Short. You get a few lines on what the document is about and the main points, enough to decide in under a minute.
Choose Detailed and save it as Word. You get the key points with the important figures, dates and names, ready to paste into an email.
Choose Detailed, then open Chat with PDF to ask about the parts you want to understand better.
Pick your language in the Summary in list. A French report can be summarized in English, or an English one in Spanish, Arabic or Hindi.
What the AI reads
The summarizer reads the text of the PDF. Your PDF is opened in your browser and only its text is sent to our server and on to the AI service, which writes the summary. Up to about 25 pages of text are read; for a longer document, split it into parts first.
- Scanned pages are pictures with no text. Make them searchable with OCR first, then summarize.
- Tables are read as text, so their figures show up in the summary.
- AI can get details wrong. For anything important, check the figures in the PDF itself.
Don’t use AI tools for confidential documents. The AI service may keep the text it receives under its own terms.
Questions people ask
Is the AI PDF summarizer free?
Yes. You can summarize several PDFs a day for free, with no sign-up.
Can it summarize a PDF in another language?
Yes. The PDF can be in any language, and you can choose any of 40 languages for the summary.
How long can the PDF be?
Up to about 25 pages of text are read. For a longer PDF, use Split PDF to make smaller parts and summarize each one.
Why does it say my PDF has no text?
It is a scan or photos of pages. Run it through OCR PDF to add real text, then summarize the new file.