Turn one or more PDFs into a cited brief
Upload one to five PDFs and get a short report with headed sections, where every claim links to the page it came from.
Drop your PDFs hereLet go to start
or paste with Ctrl/⌘+V
Try it 5× without an account. A free account includes 20 AI credits a month. See plans
What it does
PDF to brief, explained
PDF to brief reads up to five PDFs together and writes one short report about them: a title and three to seven sections with headings, where each factual claim carries a numbered citation. Each citation names the document, the version it was read from and the page, with a quote that PDFBetter checked word for word against that page. A brief costs 4 AI credits, however many documents it reads.
Read more
Citations whose quote can't be found on the cited page are removed, and the brief says how many and which passages are left without a verified source. You get the brief on screen and as a PDF with a Sources section at the end, saved in your account.
Use it to prepare for a meeting on several reports, put two proposals or agreements side by side, or hand a colleague a one-page overview they can check. It differs from its neighbors: the AI PDF summarizer condenses a single PDF inside the editor, Chat with PDF answers one question at a time, and PDF to presentation turns the same material into a slide outline with speaker notes.
The text is processed by OpenAI's API under OpenAI's API data-usage terms, which by default exclude API data from training. A brief is a reading aid and can be wrong; the citations are there so you can check.
How to do it
Turn one or more PDFs into a cited brief in 5 steps
1Your PDF
2Pick the format
3Sections that cite pages
- 1
Sign in and upload
Drop one to five PDFs. A free account is needed because the brief and its sources are saved for you. The Free plan includes 20 AI credits a month and Pro includes 500.
- 2
Keep “Brief” selected
Optionally type a focus in your own words, such as “payment terms and deadlines” or “methods and limitations”.
- 3
Generate
Uses 4 AI credits. Short sets are read in one pass; long ones are read in parts first, so it can take a minute.
- 4
Check the citations
Open any numbered citation to see the document, version, page and quote it relies on.
- 5
Download or keep working
Download the PDF with its Sources section, or open the full workspace to add documents, ask questions across them or make a slide outline.
Example
Before and after
Two vendor proposals (31 and 18 pages) for the same project.
A five-section brief comparing scope, price, timeline and exclusions, each claim citing the proposal, its version and page; a note that the pricing tables on page 12 of one proposal were images and weren't read.
Settings & formats
What you can control
- Focus
- Optional topics to concentrate on, in your own words (up to 500 characters).
- Several documents
- Up to 5 PDFs on this page; add more in a document workspace and pick which to include.
- Save as document
- In the full workspace, also add the brief's PDF to your documents so you can edit, share or sign it.
Input
Output
Good to know before you start
- The brief can misstate or leave out details. Check anything important against the cited pages.
- Scanned PDFs without a text layer can't be read until OCR adds one; those pages are listed as not read.
- Text inside images, charts and diagrams isn't read, so findings shown only in a chart are missed.
- Each document is read up to 100 pages on Free and 600 on Pro; pages beyond that, and scanned pages without a text layer, are listed as not read.
- It writes about what the documents say. It doesn't check facts against outside sources or give legal, financial or medical advice.
If something goes wrong
If something goes wrong
- A document was skipped
- It is probably a scan with no text layer. Run OCR PDF on it, then generate the brief again.
- Some statements have no citation
- The quote the AI gave couldn't be found on the page, so the citation was removed. Treat those statements as unverified.
PDF to brief: questions people ask
How is a brief different from the AI PDF summarizer?
The summarizer condenses one PDF inside the editor, with page numbers. A brief can combine up to five PDFs into one report, cites the document and version as well as the page, and comes with a downloadable PDF that lists every source.
How are the citations checked?
Each citation's quote must appear word for word on the cited page of the exact document version that was read. Citations that fail the check are removed and the brief notes how many.
What does the version in a citation mean?
Documents in PDFBetter keep versions as you edit them. A citation says which version it was read from, so later edits don't silently change what a brief cites.
Can I combine several PDFs into one brief?
Yes. Upload up to 5 on this page, or put more into a document workspace and select the ones to include.
How much does it cost?
4 AI credits per brief, however many documents it reads. The Free plan includes 20 AI credits a month and Pro includes 500.
Can I get slides instead of a written brief?
Yes. PDF to presentation uses the same reading and citation checks but writes 6–12 slides with bullets and speaker notes.
Do I need an account?
Yes. Briefs, their sources and the PDF are saved to your account so the citations keep working. A free account is enough.
Is my document used to train AI?
The text is processed by OpenAI's API under OpenAI's API data-usage terms, which by default exclude API data from training. PDFBetter does not train models on your documents.