When reading lengthy PDFs in the past, we had to spend significant time reading and understanding the whole PDF manually. However, the whole process now requires only a few minutes with PDF summarizer tools.
PDF summarizer is an AI-powered tool that can analyze the PDF content and then provide a brief or lengthy summary as per your request. Some tools can even offer a summary of specific pages or sections within the PDF. Therefore, if you want to leverage a PDF summarizer, then stick with this guide to learn about the six best PDF summarizer AI tools to consider.
Part 1. Which Is The Best PDF Summarizer? Check Out the List!
If you search for “PDF summarizer” on the web, you will come up with many tools. This makes it overwhelming to choose the right one. To reduce this hassle, we are presenting the six best PDF summarizer AI tools that can provide accurate summaries and increase your productivity.
1. The AI Assistant within UPDF
The first and our top pick is UPDF’s AI assistant. It is the most modernized and most capable PDF summarizer AI tool you will find on the web. It provides two versions, i.e., AI online for web-based PDF summaries and desktop-based PDF summaries within the UPDF app.
The summarization capabilities of UPDF’s AI assistant are exceptional. It offers four ways to summarize a PDF, as follows:
1. Summarize the Entire PDF at Once
It offers an AI chat box where you can instruct it to summarize the entire PDF briefly, thoroughly, or in any specific way you want. For example, you can ask it to “Summarize this PDF within 50 words, including 3 points”. The following screenshot shows the summary generated by the online UPDF AI.
2. Summarize by Page Range
UPDF AI allows you to specify a single or a set of pages within a PDF and summarize them instantly. This is useful if you don’t want to summarize the whole PDF. The following screenshot shows the summary generated by the AI assistant within the UPDF app. Interested users can download UPDF and try it out.
3. Summarize by Selecting Text
UPDF AI lets you highlight the text in the PDF you want to summarize and get an instant summary immediately. Please note that the “select and summarize” feature is only available in the UPDF app.
4. Summarize Scanned Documents
UPDF AI supports analyzing and summarizing scanned documents by performing OCR. Other tools don’t support this feature. Please note that this feature is only available in the UPDF app.
Simply put, UPDF AI provides a feature-rich PDF summarization toolkit you need. The other top-notch features you will experience with UPDF AI include:
· Multilingual Support: It supports PDF summarization in multiple languages.
· Standalone Pricing Plans: You can buy UPDF AI separately, while other tools do not offer standalone pricing plans for their AI features.
· Click-based Interface: It provides an intuitive, easy-to-use interface to read, summarize, and understand PDFs.
· Wide Compatibility: It allows you to summarize PDFs on the web, Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android.
· Featured Beyond Summarization: Its AI capabilities also allow you to translate or get an explanation of PDF content. Further, you can also ask questions beyond the scope of PDF.
Overall, UPDF’s AI assistant shines as a full-fledged PDF summarizer AI tool. To use it, follow the below steps:
Option 1. Access UPDF AI Online
1. Go to UPDF.ai, sign up, and upload the PDF you want to summarize.
2. Use the chat box to instruct how you want to get a summary, such as summarize the PDF in bullet points, summarize the PDF in 200 words, etc.
Option 2. Access UPDF AI on the Desktop
1. Install and launch UPDF on Windows/Mac/iOS/Android and open the PDF you want to summarize.
2. Click the “AI” icon from the bottom right corner and let it analyze the PDF.
3. Now, write the prompt or use the quick prompt button to summarize selected pages.
This way, you can easily access AI on the web or desktop and get PDF summaries without hassle.
Limits/Cons
· Free trial is limited to 30 questions and 3 PDF files
2. Adobe Acrobat AI
Who does not know about Adobe — the creator of PDF file format. Well, you can now use Adobe Acrobat with its integrated AI capabilities. Its “AI Assistant” allows you to quickly get summaries of your PDFs.
Adobe Acrobat AI provides a chat box with which you can instruct how you want to get the summary. Afterward, it can summarize the PDF the way you want. You can access its AI capabilities on web, desktop, and mobile.
To use Adobe Acrobat AI, follow the below steps:
1. Launch Adobe Acrobat and click “AI Assistant” from the list of tools.
2. Open the PDF and then use the AI chat box to write the prompt about summarizing the PDF, such as summarize the PDF within 100 words.
This way, Adobe Acrobat AI will provide the required summary.
Limits/Cons
· No direct select and summarize option
· No selective page summary option
· 25 MB max file size limit
· 300–500 character prompt text limit
· Occasional inaccurate summary responses, such as being unable to restrict the summary length to the required word count.
· Only support PDF summarization in the English language.
· No separate AI pricing plan
· Costly plans
3. PDFelement AI
PDFelement AI is another powerful PDF summarizer AI tool you can use. Powered through ChatGPT, it provides an intuitive interface to summarize PDFs the way you want. It can summarize research papers, articles, reports, and other files. Furthermore, it supports 13 languages for summarizing PDFs. It is accessible on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android.
To use PDFelement AI, follow the below steps:
1. Install and launch PDFelement on your computer and open the PDF to summarize.
2. Click the “AI” icon from the right sidebar and tap “Summarize PDF”. The tool will instantly provide the summary. Alternatively, you can also use the chat box to get a specific summary.
This way, PDFelement AI shines as another easy-to-use PDF summary generator you can try.
Limits/Cons
· No web-based PDF summarization
· No direct select and summarize option
· No unlimited free version (14-day trial | 2,000 tokens and 3 pages)
· No selective page summary option
4. Foxit AI
Foxit AI is a ChatGPT-powered AI assistant integrated into the web-based Foxit PDF editor. Just like the above PDF summarizer AI tools, Foxit AI allows you to summarize the entire PDF content or selective content from the PDF. You can use its dedicated summarization options or use its chat box to give specific instructions.
Here’s how to use Foxit AI to get a PDF summary:
1. Open the Foxit PDF Editor and upload the PDF.
2. Click the “AI Assistant” icon from the bottom right corner.
3. Under “More Tools”, click “Summarize the document” to get the complete document summary.
4. To summarize specific text, click More Tools > Summarize the text and copy-paste the text to summarize. Alternatively, you can also directly select the text in the PDF and get a summary.
This way, the web-based support of Foxit AI makes it handy to get PDF summaries on the go.
Limitations/Cons
· No desktop or mobile apps
· Less intuitive interface
· No option to summarize selective pages
· No separate AI pricing plan
· Costly premium plans
5. ChatGPT
ChatGPT is a well-known natural language processing (NLP) tool that allows human-like chats on almost any topic. However, you can also use it as a PDF summarizer AI tool. With its latest update, you can now upload your PDF and ask it to summarize the whole document. Alternatively, you can copy-paste the text and let it summarize as you want.
Here’s how to use ChatGPT as a PDF summary generator tool:
1. Go to the ChatGPT website and click the “attachment” icon to upload the PDF.
2. In the text prompt, instruct ChatGPT about summarizing the PDF. Once done, you will instantly get the required summary.
This way, ChatGPT offers a simple and fast approach to summarizing PDFs.
Limitations/Cons
· No desktop app
· Limited free PDF summarization per day
· No preview of PDF while summarizing
· No summarization of scanned PDFs
· No direct select and summarize option
· No option to summarize selective pages
· Costly premium plans
6. SmallPDF AI
SmallPDF AI is another web-based PDF summarizer AI tool. It lets you upload PDFs from your computer, Dropbox, or Google Drive. Afterward, its interactive chat function lets you summarize the PDF as you want.
To use SmallPDF AI, follow the below steps:
1. Go to the SmallPDF AI website and upload the PDF.
2. Once the PDF is uploaded, use the chat box to instruct it to summarize the PDF.
This way, you can easily use web-based SmallPDF AI as your PDF summary generator.
Limitations/Cons
· PDF file preview does not support text selection
· Limited free PDF summarization per day
· No summarization of scanned PDFs
· No direct select and summarize option
· No option to summarize selective pages
Comparison Table Between the 6 Best PDF Summarizers
Now that we know which are the six best PDF summarizer AI tools to use, the next question is which one of them to choose. So, let’s create a comparison table and highlight their main differences:
Conclusion
AI PDF summarizer tool is a perfect way to increase your productivity and save time when reading and analyzing PDFs. Above, we have presented the top six PDF summarizer AI tools to choose from. Now, the final choice is yours. You can evaluate your needs and budget and choose the right tool accordingly. However, if you want to choose the best one among all, then UPDF AI dominates with its exceptional features, as evident from the comparison table. So, finalize the tool and start using it as your PDF summary generator.
