Guide PDFs

PDF Chat and Analysis

Upload any PDF to Scholarly and interact with it through AI. Ask questions about the content, get summaries, edit the document, and generate study materials directly from your files.

Uploading a PDF

Drag and drop a PDF anywhere on the page, or click the upload button to browse your files. Files can be up to 8 MB on Free, 300 MB on Premium, or 1 GB on Laureate. How much of a long file feeds AI generation also rises with the plan: up to 32 pages on Free, 1,000 on Premium, and 3,000 on Laureate — so a whole policy manual or textbook can back a single deck on a paid plan.

If your PDF is password-protected, Scholarly asks for the password during upload and retries with the unlocked file — no need to remove the lock yourself first. You can also use scanned PDFs and photographed notes (including CamScanner exports); clear, legible pages produce the best results.

After uploading, you are prompted with follow-up actions:

  • Ask AI -- Open the AI chat sidebar to start asking questions about the PDF.
  • Create Flashcards -- Generate a flashcard set from the PDF content.
  • Create Quiz -- Build a quiz based on the material.
  • Create Podcast -- Turn the PDF into a multi-voice audio podcast.
  • Create Video Lecture -- Generate a narrated video lecture from the PDF.
  • Create AI Slides -- Generate a slide deck from the PDF.

What You Can Generate from a PDF

A PDF in your library can feed almost every AI create flow in Scholarly — beyond the follow-up actions above, you can turn the same file into an AI Study Pack, study guide, worksheet, spreadsheet, mind map, or infographic, or open AI Document for a report, timeline, SOP, and the rest of its document types. Pick the PDF from the Library tab of any create modal.

Choose exactly which pages to use. Every AI create flow includes a page selector for PDFs — expand the file in the create modal and pick a page range, so a 400-page textbook can power a deck about just chapter 7.

Reads relevant pages visually. When building slides, study guides, worksheets, videos, infographics, or mind maps, the AI uses extracted text to locate relevant PDF pages, then reads those pages visually when needed. This helps it account for diagrams, equations, tables, scans, and handwriting instead of relying only on extracted text.

AI Document

PDF and file creators live inside one AI Document tool: add your sources once, then pick the document type in the customize step — a report, a procedure, a timeline, a workbook, or a shape you describe in your own words. The full, current list of document types lives in one place: see AI Document.

Not sure which shape you want? AI Document has a Plan with chat option — talk through your sources and what you want before generating. See Getting Started.

Exports

Documents Scholarly generated — a report, a study guide, an SOP, a page — export as an editable Word document or PowerPoint deck on a paid plan, or straight to Google Docs or Google Slides when you have connected Google Drive. Without a connection the menu offers to connect Drive first. Exporting creates a separate copy and leaves the original's sharing settings alone.

A PDF you uploaded yourself is not converted: the export options are for documents Scholarly built. You can still download or print any uploaded PDF, and that stays free on every plan. See Exporting Your Work for the full format-by-format breakdown.

PDF Viewer

The built-in viewer lets you read your PDF without leaving Scholarly. Navigate between pages using the page controls. On phones, wide pages automatically fit to your screen width when the document opens, so nothing is cut off.

Bookmarks in the source PDF are kept and listed for navigation, so a textbook's own chapter list works as a table of contents.

Your place is kept. Reopen a PDF and it lands on the page you stopped on, on any device you sign in from, with a Start over if you'd rather go back to page one. Zoom level follows your account too. See Continue Where You Left Off.

A Word or PowerPoint file you uploaded keeps its original name and extension in the viewer, in sharing, and in the title editor — Scholarly renders it as a PDF to display it, but it does not rename your file to .pdf.

Slides View

PDFs can be displayed in two layouts:

  • PDF View -- The default scrolling layout. Pages stack vertically and you scroll through the document.
  • Slides View -- A presentation-style layout with a thumbnail sidebar on the left and one large slide in the main area. Navigate between slides by clicking thumbnails or using arrow keys.

Switch between views using the toggle above the document. AI-generated slide decks open in Slides View by default.

Presentation Mode

From Slides View, click the play button to enter full-screen presentation mode. Navigate with:

  • Arrow keys (left/right)
  • Page Up / Page Down
  • Space bar
  • Click left or right half of the screen

Press Esc to exit. The shortcuts work the same way as Google Slides.

AI Chat

Open the AI chat sidebar to ask questions about your PDF. The AI reads the document content and gives grounded answers based on what is actually in the file.

Key capabilities:

  • Page awareness -- The AI knows which page you are currently viewing and uses that as context.
  • Page-specific reading -- The AI can read specific pages when answering questions, so it can reference material from anywhere in the document.
  • Quick suggestions -- Use preset prompts like "Give me the gist" or "Summarize" to get started fast without typing a question.

AI PDF Editing

You can ask the AI chat assistant to edit your PDFs directly. In the chat, describe what you want changed -- for example:

  • "Add a watermark"
  • "Rotate page 3"
  • "Merge these pages"
  • "Redact this section"

The AI modifies the file and your viewer updates automatically.

Renaming

Click the PDF title at the top of the viewer to rename it. The new name appears across your home page, sidebar, and anywhere the PDF is referenced.

Sharing

Share a PDF with others directly from within Scholarly using a share link. Recipients can view the document and its content without needing an account.

Need a physical copy or a saved file instead? The viewer menu also lets you download the PDF or print it directly.

Limits

  • File size -- 8 MB per file on Free, 300 MB on Premium, or 1 GB on Laureate.
  • Uploads -- The free plan includes 1 lifetime file upload; paid plans remove the cap.
  • Pages used for generation -- Up to 32 pages of a PDF feed AI generation on Free, 1,000 pages on Premium, or 3,000 pages on Laureate.
  • AI creations -- Generating study material from a PDF uses your shared AI Creation Credit allowance: 1 lifetime creation on Free, 10 each week on Premium, or 80 each week on Laureate. Most models cost 1 AI Creation Credit, Claude Sonnet 5 and Kimi K3 cost 2, and Frontier models cost 3.

See Plans and Limits for the full breakdown.

FAQ

My PDF is over the size limit — what can I do? Compress the PDF or split it into smaller files before uploading, or upgrade for the 300 MB limit on Premium or 1 GB on Laureate. If you only need part of the document, exporting just those pages keeps the file small.

Does Scholarly work with scanned or handwritten PDFs? Yes. Scholarly can read relevant pages visually, so scanned PDFs and clear handwriting can be used even without selectable text. Image quality and legibility still affect the result.

Can I use only part of a PDF for flashcards or a quiz? Yes — every create modal includes a page selector. Expand the PDF in the modal and choose the page range you want the AI to use.

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