Claude AI can summarize text from PDFs for free. Here’s how to use it

Technology
Friday, October 20th, 2023 2:21 pm EDT

Key Points

  • Claude AI, developed by Anthropic, offers a free solution for summarizing lengthy PDFs and other document types, providing a time-saving alternative to reading extensive documents.
  • Claude allows users to upload various file types, including PDFs, DOCX, CSV, and TXT, and provides clear and concise summaries of documents, encompassing a wide range of subject matter.
  • Claude’s summarization capabilities were demonstrated with examples, such as generating different summaries for two PDFs of “The Great Gatsby” and effectively summarizing financial data from Microsoft’s earnings report. Users can issue various commands, and the free version has some limitations, including a 10MB PDF size limit and a cap on the number of summaries allowed every four hours.

Claude AI, developed by Anthropic, offers a free and convenient solution for summarizing lengthy PDFs and other document types. Users can upload PDFs, DOCX, CSV, or TXT files directly to Claude. By issuing a simple command like “Summarize PDF,” you can receive a concise summary of the document, saving you time on extensive reading.

Claude effectively generates summaries across a wide range of topics and returned accurate plot summaries for “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, even when provided with the same PDF multiple times. This tool also works well for other content, such as financial data, by providing clear, bulleted lists of important information from documents.

Pro tip: Claude AI supports various commands like “Tell me the important information in this” and “Recap this for me” to obtain document highlights. The free version has some limitations, including a 10MB PDF size limit and a cap on the number of summaries allowed every four hours.

Here’s how to use Claude AI for document summarization:

  1. Visit the claude.ai website using your preferred web browser.
  2. Enter your email and verify your account by using the code sent to your email.
  3. Provide your name, confirm you are over 18, and agree to the terms of use and privacy policy.
  4. Enter your phone number and verify it using the code provided.
  5. Review and agree to the disclosures about Claude.
  6. Upload your document by clicking the paper clip icon.
  7. Select the PDF or other file type you want to summarize.
  8. Type a summarization command (e.g., “Summarize”).
  9. Press “Enter” on your keyboard or click the airplane logo on the search bar to receive your summary.

For the full original article on CNBC, please click here: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/20/claude-ai-can-summarize-text-from-pdfs-for-free-heres-how-to-use-it.html

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