AI summarize PDF
Drop in any PDF and get a structured summary: key points, action items, and an executive overview. Powered by Claude and GPT-class models.
Drag & drop a file
or browse from your computer · max 100 MB
AI PDF summarization turns a 50-page report, research paper, or contract into a structured one-page brief in seconds. Instead of skimming and missing the point, you get an executive summary, key bullet points, action items, and citations back to specific pages. PDFOnly uses Claude and GPT-class models to read the full document and produce a summary that's actually accurate — not a generic paraphrase. Available on Pro and Team plans because high-quality AI inference has real cost; the underlying model providers charge us per token, and we pass through honest pricing rather than rate-limit you behind a free tier.
How to ai summarize step by step
- 1
Upload your PDF
Drop the document. We accept any PDF up to 200 MB on Pro. For very long documents (200+ pages), we chunk and summarize per section, then synthesize.
- 2
We extract the text and run AI summarization
Text is extracted via pdftotext (or OCR for scans). The model receives the full text in context window-sized chunks and produces a structured summary with the prompt 'extract executive summary, key points, action items, and citations'.
- 3
Download or copy the summary
Output is plain text with clear section headers. Copy into your notes, email, or briefing doc. Pro users can also export as PDF or Word.
Why ai summarize on PDFOnly
Citations, not hallucinations
Every key claim in our summary references a specific page. If a model invents something, you can verify by checking the cited page. Most summarization tools don't show their work.
Frontier models, not open-source approximations
We use Claude (preferred) and GPT-class models — the same engines powering Anthropic and OpenAI's flagship products. Open-source summarizers are improving but still produce noticeably weaker results on long documents.
Privacy preserved
Your PDF is sent to the AI provider for inference but with explicit no-training agreements (Anthropic and OpenAI both honor this for API customers). Documents are not retained by the model providers and are not used to improve their models.
What people use ai summarize for
A few common scenarios. If your workflow looks like one of these, this tool is a good fit.
Brief yourself on a long research paper
Drop a 30-page academic paper and get the methodology, key findings, and limitations distilled to a page. Quote-ready citations included for your literature review.
Summarize a contract before signing
Get a plain-English overview of a contract's obligations, payment terms, exit clauses, and red flags. Saves hours when you're skimming a vendor MSA.
Distill quarterly reports for an exec briefing
Investors and executives don't have time to read 80-page quarterly reports. AI-summarize gives them the financials, growth trajectory, and risk factors in one page.
Summarize meeting minutes or transcripts
Long meeting transcripts (especially from voice-to-text tools) become a structured brief with decisions made, action owners, and open questions.
What you get
- Three-section output: executive summary, key points, action items
- Citations back to specific pages so you can verify claims
- Handles documents up to 200 pages on Pro, longer on Team
- Powered by Claude (preferred) or GPT-class models — best-in-class summarization quality
- Your document is never used to train the underlying AI models
- Files auto-deleted within an hour, summary text retained 7 days on Pro
Frequently asked questions
How accurate is the AI summary?
On well-structured documents (reports, research papers, contracts): 95%+ of key points captured correctly. On messy documents (transcripts, scanned PDFs with poor OCR): 70-85%. Always verify high-stakes claims by checking the cited pages — we provide page numbers specifically so you can spot-check.
Will my document be used to train AI models?
No. We use Anthropic and OpenAI's API tier with explicit no-training-data clauses. Your document is sent for inference, the response comes back, and it's discarded. Neither we nor the model providers retain your content.
What's the maximum document length?
Pro: up to 200 pages. Team: up to 1000 pages (chunked + synthesized). Beyond that, you'll get the best results by splitting into thematic sections first using Split PDF.
Can I customize the summary format?
Yes — Pro plans include a custom-prompt feature where you can specify 'summarize as bullet points', 'extract just the financial figures', 'list every legal clause', etc. Default format is executive summary + key points + action items.
Does it work on scanned PDFs?
Yes — we run OCR first to extract the text, then summarize. OCR adds processing time (1-5 minutes for a 30-page scan) but the summary itself is generated from the OCR output.
Can I summarize multiple PDFs at once?
Through the web UI, one at a time. The API supports batching — POST a list of fileIds and get summaries back as an array. Useful for processing folders of contracts or research papers.
Why is this a paid feature?
Frontier AI inference has real per-token cost. A typical 50-page summary costs us $0.05-0.20 in compute. Free tiers on competing tools either rate-limit aggressively or use much weaker open-source models. We'd rather charge transparently than serve a degraded experience.
Ready to ai summarize?
Free to use for the basics. Files are auto-deleted within an hour and never used to train AI.
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