PDF Summarizer: Summarize Any PDF into a Mind Map
Upload a PDF and get its key points back as a structured, editable mind map
Try It FreeNo credit card required · Free credits on signup
How It Works
Upload Your PDF
Drag and drop any text-based PDF up to 10 MB. Free reads the first 100,000 characters; Pro and Max read up to 300,000 and 600,000
AI Extracts Structure
MindLM parses headings, sections, and figures to rebuild the document outline, not just a flat summary
Review, Edit, Export
Browse the full document as a visual tree, tweak nodes inline, then export as PNG, SVG, or Markdown
Why MindLM?
Hierarchy-Aware Extraction
MindLM reads heading levels, font weight, and section numbering to rebuild the real chapter hierarchy. You get the author’s structure back — not a flat bullet dump.
Built for Long Documents
Pro reads up to 300,000 characters and Max up to 600,000 in one pass — roughly 100 and 200 pages of dense text. If a file runs past your plan’s limit, the upload screen tells you before you spend credits.
Multilingual by Default
English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, German, and more — the mind map matches your PDF’s language automatically.
Editable, Exportable, Shareable
Every node is live — rename, reorganize, add notes, or delete sections. Export as PNG/SVG/Markdown or share a public link.
Popular Use Cases
See what people actually use it for — chances are your problem is on this list.
Survey a research paper before reading it
Drop an arXiv or journal PDF in and get the contribution, methodology, and conclusion as a single visual before you invest an hour reading it. Decide whether the paper is worth the deep read in 60 seconds.
Turn a textbook chapter into revision notes
Upload a 30-page chapter before an exam and get back the concepts, sub-concepts, and key definitions laid out in a hierarchy that matches the book. Add your own notes to the nodes as you study.
Summarize a client white paper fast
Consultants and analysts: drop a vendor’s 40-page white paper in and walk into the meeting knowing the positioning, claims, and gaps. Export as PNG to drop into your own deck.
Navigate a legal contract or policy doc
Contracts, terms of service, and compliance policies are brutal to read linearly. See the full clause hierarchy in one view, then jump to the clauses that actually matter for your case.
Prep for a book club or study group
Running a session on a non-fiction book? Generate the structural outline, pick the chapters to discuss, share the mind map with the group as a pre-read, and everyone walks in aligned.
How to summarize a PDF in 3 steps
- Upload the file. Drag a PDF onto the upload area or click to pick one. Any text-based PDF up to 10 MB works: papers, textbook chapters, reports, manuals, contracts.
- Check the quote and start. MindLM counts the characters in the file and shows the credit cost before it runs. If the file is longer than your plan reads, the upload screen says so up front.
- Read the summary as a mind map. The document's chapters become the first-level branches and each section's key points sit underneath. Collapse what you don't need, edit any node, then export.
Why a mind map beats a paragraph summary
A PDF summarizer that returns five bullet points throws away the one thing a long document is built on: its structure. MindLM reads heading levels, section numbering, and layout cues to rebuild the author's outline, then summarizes inside that outline. You can still see that the limitations belong to Section 5 and the key definition sits in Chapter 2, rather than getting a flat list with no sense of where each point came from.
That matters most when you need to go back to the source. A summary that keeps the chapter tree tells you exactly which pages to reopen.
Page and file size limits
Two limits apply to every upload: file size and the amount of text MindLM reads.
| Plan | Max file size | Text read per file | Roughly equals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 10 MB | 100,000 characters | about 30 pages of dense text |
| Pro | 10 MB | 300,000 characters | about 100 pages |
| Max | 10 MB | 600,000 characters | about 200 pages |
Page counts are estimates. A page of a two-column academic paper holds far more text than a page of slides, so the character count is what actually decides it. If a file runs past your plan's limit, the text beyond it is trimmed, and you're told before any credits are spent.
Scanned PDFs
The PDF summarizer reads the text layer embedded in the file. A scanned document is just a picture of text, so there's nothing for it to read. For scans, save the pages as JPG or PNG and use the image input instead, which runs OCR on each image (up to 10 MB per image). Most PDFs exported from Word, Google Docs, LaTeX, or a publisher's site already have a text layer and work directly.
Export formats
- PNG — a high-resolution image for slides, reports, or printing. Free plan.
- Markdown — a nested outline for Notion, Obsidian, or any Markdown editor. Free plan.
- SVG — a vector file that stays sharp at any size. Pro and Max.
- Share link — a public, read-only page you can send to anyone.
There is no direct PDF export of the mind map yet; print the PNG or SVG if you need one.
Languages
MindLM summarizes PDFs written in English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, and more. By default the mind map matches the document's language. You can also pick one of 9 output languages to read a foreign-language report in your own.
Academic papers
If most of your PDFs are research papers, the dedicated research paper to mind map page covers what to expect from arXiv preprints and journal articles, including how abstract, methods, results, and limitations are laid out.
Word files and eBooks
Not everything arrives as a PDF. To summarize a DOCX report, a Markdown or text file, a subtitle file, or a whole EPUB book, use the document and book summarizer, which takes all of those in one place.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the PDF summarizer free?
Yes. PDFs are included in the Free plan: you get 10 free credits on signup, no credit card required. Pro and Max raise the per-file character limit and add SVG export.
What types of PDFs work best?
Any text-based PDF — exported from Word, LaTeX, Google Docs, Pages, academic publishers, or most modern document tools. Scanned or image-only PDFs have no text layer for the PDF summarizer to read; save the pages as JPG or PNG and use the image input, which runs OCR (up to 10 MB per image).
How accurate is the chapter detection?
Very accurate on well-formatted documents with consistent heading styles — academic papers, textbooks, and published reports typically hit 90 %+ structural accuracy. Poorly formatted PDFs (no heading styles, PDF-from-scanned-slides) fall back to semantic segmentation, which is still useful but less precise.
Does it work with non-English PDFs?
Yes. MindLM handles English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, and more. The generated mind map defaults to the source language; you can also ask it to translate during generation.
Is there a file size or page limit?
Files can be up to 10 MB. What counts is the text inside: Free reads up to 100,000 characters per file (about 30 pages of dense English text), Pro up to 300,000 (about 100 pages), and Max up to 600,000 (about 200 pages). Text past your plan’s limit is trimmed, and the upload screen warns you before you spend credits.
Is my PDF private?
Yes. Uploaded PDFs are processed in memory, used only to generate your mind map, and never shared with third parties or used for model training. You can delete the generated mind map (and the underlying content) from your dashboard at any time.
What can I export to?
High-resolution PNG for slides, reports, and printing; Markdown for Notion, Obsidian, or any Markdown editor; and a public share link for sending to classmates or colleagues. PNG and Markdown are on Free; SVG export is on Pro and Max.
Ready to Get Started?
Upload a PDF and get its key points back as a structured, editable mind map. Free to start, nothing to install.
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