Use These 6 Hacks to Improve Your PDF.ai Experience And Achieve Maximum Productivity

Publish date

Jun 7, 2024

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Whether you are a fan or not, PDF documents are part of most professionals' daily lives.

From invoices to training documents and more, PDFs are not going anywhere.

The good news is that using a chat-with-your-PDF tool like PDF.ai can make your work experience much less tedious and draining.

Try it out, and you’ll be sure within minutes. (Over 1,000,000 happy users can support this affirmation).

With PDF.ai, you can gather information, summarize it, and enhance your productivity in a way you won’t understand until you try it.

But do you know what’s even better?

You can use PDF.ai's advanced features and hacks, which I will show you below, to make your improved experience lightning-fast.

Ready to feel hyperproductive?

Then, keep reading.

The PDF.ai Team is always working to make your experience better.

Now, you don’t even need to have the PDF.ai website open to start a chat with your PDF document.

If you previously logged into the web app, you only need to add the words “pdf.ai/” before your PDF file’s URL in the browser navigation bar and then click enter.

This quick hack will redirect you to a new PDF.ai page, where your document will be ready for you to chat with.

You can see a demonstration in this video:

If you usually work with PDF documents hosted on a web link, you will be surprised by how this hack speeds up your daily routine.

2. Start a chat with your PDF in one click using our browser extension

If you prefer the PDF.ai browser extension, you can use an alternative hack to generate the same result.

How does it work?

Install the PDF.ai browser extension and log into your account.

Open the URL where your PDF file is hosted.

The PDF.ai icon will appear in the bottom-right corner.

If you click on it, a chat window will pop up, and after giving the extension the permissions you can start asking questions about your PDF’s content.

The best is that you won’t need to leave the document page to get your information.

If you are interested in speed more than advanced functionalities, this is the feature to use.

3. Start a chat with a specific section of your PDF by taking a screenshot

You will find the Capture & Ask icon next to the chat box in each document view.

If you click on this icon, you will automatically be able to take a screenshot of the document.

After taking the screenshot, navigate to the chat box area and ask any questions or make your requests related to the screenshot.

You can even ask follow-up questions if the screenshot attachment is still active in the chat box input area.

After you have finished with that image, you can move on to other questions. Simply click on the "x" icon on the attached image to remove it from the chat box area.

This feature will be especially useful if you are more of the visual type and want to work fast through a document without having to read a lot or if your PDF has more visually separated sections.

4. Save your most used questions/requests with a click

If you have specific questions or requests that are a regular part of your day-to-day work or study tasks, you can easily retrieve them in seconds using the Prompt Library.

To save a prompt from your current chat, hover your mouse over the prompt you want to save until the “+” icon shows up.

Click the “+” icon, and a success message will appear once added.

To see your saved prompts, click on the Prompt Library icon.

You will be able to easily access these instructions as needed.

To modify a previously saved prompt

Go into your prompt library.

Click the pencil icon for the prompt you want to edit.

Hit “Save” once done.

That’s all. You can also remove the current prompt you are no longer using by clicking the trash icon.

5. Connect your PDF.ai account with Google Drive, DocuSign, or Dropbox and access your files faster

If you are a Drive, Docusign, or Dropbox user, you can integrate any of these platforms with your PDF.ai account and create a smoother experience for yourself.

To have a chat with your PDFs hosted on any of these platforms:

Please make sure that the PDF.ai Chrome extension is installed in your browser.

You are logged into your PDF.ai account using the extension.

You are logged into your Drive, Docusign, or Dropbox account and have access to the file you want to chat with.

After you have met these requirements, you can chat with your PDF with a click or two.

Please visit this link for specific guides related to each hosting platform mentioned in this section.

6. Use one of the PDF.ai free tools to get help with more specific tasks

Are you working with tasks that involve any of the following?

Resumes

Invoices

Creating quizzes

General PDF editing

You can get ahead by using one of our PDF Free Tools.

All PDF tools are 100% FREE and run in your browser for complete privacy.

These tools were designed with specific use cases, so their features or prompts will help you achieve the best results in record time.

For example, the Resume AI Scanner tool will help you get a short but comprehensive overview of your candidates in seconds or allow you to ask questions to assess the candidates' skills or experience.

That is just one of more than fifteen free tools we have ready for you.

Our AI tools are powered by OpenAI and processed externally to ensure the best results.

You don’t even need to sign up to use them.

Okay, we’ve gotten to the end of this post.

To improve your productivity, I invite you to try these six hacks.

Working hard is not the best path to success.

A combination of hard work and smart work is always the best strategy.

I am sure that by implementing a tool like PDF.ai into your workflow or routine (plus the amazing tricks I just showed you), you will be able to achieve a lot more… And that will mean you’ll reach your goals faster.