Vendor-neutral · Beginner · 5 lessons · about 33 minutes · updated 2026-09-12
How to Use ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini With PDFs (Free vs Paid)
Upload a document, ask it questions, summarise it to the length you want, pull out the action items, compare two versions, and know exactly where a free plan stops being enough.
For people who have a contract, a report, a set of terms or a long email thread and would rather ask it questions than read all of it. No technical knowledge needed. Works on the free tier of ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, with an honest note on where the free tier ends.
Course outline
- 1Upload a document and ask it three questionsGet a document into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini — by upload or by pasting — and ask three specific questions. The answers come from the document, which means you can check them against it.7 min · 3 objectives
- 2Summarise to a length you chooseThree bullets or thirty, one line or one page — the length is the most important thing you tell a summariser, and the focus is the second. Build a fill-in prompt you can reuse on every document you meet.6 min · 3 objectives
- 3Extract information and action itemsTurn meeting notes or a report into a structured list of who does what by when. Ask for a format — a table or JSON — and the answer becomes something you can paste into a spreadsheet or a to-do app.7 min · 3 objectives
- 4Compare two documents and find what changedTwo versions of the same terms, contract or policy. Paste both and ask for a table of every change. It is the job people least expect AI to do well, and it is one of the ones it does best.6 min · 3 objectives
- 5Turn documents into notes, and what free plans allowMake a one-page working note from a document, learn to spot a summary that invented a figure, and get an honest picture of what free and paid plans allow for uploads on each vendor.7 min · 3 objectives
Frequently asked
Can AI read a PDF?
Yes. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini all accept PDF uploads, including on free plans within limits. For a document of a few pages you can also paste the text straight into the message, which works on every plan and is how this course's exercises run.
Which AI is best for documents?
For a short document, all three do the jobs in this course well on a free account. Differences show up with long documents (context size), many documents (projects and file limits) and spreadsheets (paid analysis tools). Start with the one you have; pay only when you hit a limit on your real documents.
Are AI answers about a document accurate?
Far more than answers from memory, because the facts are on the page. The remaining errors are in compression — a rounded number, a dropped condition, a missed removal. Ask for section numbers and check each figure against the page; the course shows how in every lesson.
Do I need to pay to complete this course?
No. Every exercise pastes a short document into the prompt and runs on any free account. Lesson 5 sets out honestly where free plans stop for document work and the three questions that tell you whether paying would help you.