Uploading Documents to AI

Before you can summarize a document, you need to get it into the AI. Different document types require different approaches.

Method 1: Direct File Upload

Most AI tools now support direct file uploads:

ChatGPT (Plus/Team/Enterprise)

• Click the paperclip icon
• Supports: PDF, Word, PowerPoint, text files
• Up to 512MB per file

Claude

• Click the attachment icon or drag and drop
• Supports: PDF, Word, text, code files, images
• Up to 30MB per file, multiple files at once

Google Gemini

• Click the "+" icon and select "Upload file"
• Supports: PDF, text, code, images
• Integrated with Google Drive

Method 2: Copy and Paste

For shorter documents or when file upload isn't available:

1. Open your document
2. Select all text (Ctrl/Cmd + A)
3. Copy (Ctrl/Cmd + C)
4. Paste directly into the AI chat

Best for:

• Web articles
• Emails
• Short reports under 10 pages
• Text without important formatting

Method 3: URL Submission

Some AI tools can fetch content directly:

Note: This works best with publicly accessible web pages. Paywalled content, login-required pages, and some dynamically-loaded sites won't work.

Handling PDFs: The Tricky Part

PDFs come in two types, and they behave very differently:

Text-Based PDFs

• Created from Word documents, digital reports
• Text can be selected and copied
• AI can read these directly

Scanned/Image PDFs

• Created from physical scans
• Text appears as images
• Need OCR (Optical Character Recognition) first

How to check: Try selecting text in the PDF. If you can highlight individual words, it's text-based. If the entire page selects as one image, it's scanned.

For scanned PDFs:

1. Use Adobe Acrobat's OCR feature
2. Use a free tool like OCRmyPDF
3. Some AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT-4) can read images directly - just upload the PDF

Document Preparation Checklist

Before uploading, consider:

• Is the document under the size limit?
• Is the text selectable (for PDFs)?
• Have you removed any confidential information?
• Is the document in a supported format?

Privacy Considerations

Be careful with:

• Confidential business documents
• Personal financial information
• Health records
• Legal documents with sensitive details

Tips for sensitive content:

• Check your AI provider's data usage policy
• Consider using AI tools with enterprise data protection
• Redact sensitive details before uploading
• Use local AI models for highly confidential content

Try the Workflow

Practice the process with a simple document:

This confirmation step helps you verify the AI received the complete document correctly.

Key Takeaway

Choose your upload method based on document type and length. Always verify the AI received your complete document before asking for a summary, especially with longer files.