Chat with a research paper
Papers are dense, and you often need one thing from them: what was measured, how, and what the authors admit they could not do. Upload the PDF, ask, and get an answer with the page it came from, so you read the source instead of trusting a summary.
How it works
Upload your PDF
Sign in and add the paper. askPDF reads the text so you can ask about it.
Ask in plain words
Type a question the way you would ask a colleague. Answers draw on the most relevant passages of the PDF, not the whole document at once, so ask about one topic at a time.
Check the page
Every answer carries a page chip, such as p. 12. Click it and the PDF jumps to that page, so you can read the source yourself.
Questions to ask
- What research question does this paper try to answer?
- How does the paper say the data was collected, and how large was the sample?
- What are the main results, and which table or figure shows them?
- What limitations do the authors mention?
- How do the authors say their work differs from earlier studies?
- What do the authors suggest as future work?
An example
They say the sample came from a single hospital, so the results may not carry over to other settings, and that follow-up was short.p. 9
An illustration of the format. In the app, the page chip opens that page of your PDF.
Questions and answers
- Can I ask about a specific table or figure?
- Yes. Name it in your question, for example “What does Table 2 show?”, and check the cited page to see it in the PDF.
- Does it replace reading the paper?
- No. It helps you find the parts that matter faster. Each answer points to a page so you can read the passage and judge it yourself.
- What about scanned papers?
- askPDF works with PDFs that contain text. A PDF that is only a picture of a page has no text to read, and the upload will say so.
- Can I keep a reference for each claim?
- Each answer names its page, so you can note the page next to the claim. Check the passage in the PDF before you quote it.
Try it on your own PDF
Free to start. No credit card, no setup.
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