USING AI TO SUMMARIZE A PRINTED DOCUMENT

©Donald R. Snow - Page last updated 2024-07-16
Return to Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's Class Listings Page .
ABSTRACT: AI (Artificial Intelligence) can be very helpful in family history and many other subjects.  This class will show how to start with a printed document, scan it with a smartphone or tablet, and use AI to summarize the text.  Some AI websites require text input and others can use pdf (Portable Document Format) input. We will show how to OCR (Optical Character Recognize) a pdf so it is text. The notes with active links for this and related classes are on my website  https://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html .

    WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

  1. Instructor is Donald R. Snow ( snowd@math.byu.edu ) of Provo, Utah.
  2. The notes with active URLs and additional information in other notes and articles are posted at http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html .
  3. Problem for today:  How do yo use AI to summarize a printed \document? 

    4. SHORT REVIEW OF AI

  4. AI is a method of checking search terms against a a large collection of text in order to see what other words and thoughts are nearby, since nearby terms may be related to the search terms.  The AI program then uses these words and thoughts to write a narrative about the search terms. 
  5. There are several free AI websites and 4 are listed below.  There are also commercial (pay) websites, but we won't discuss those here.    
  6. Links to some free AI websites:
    1. Gemini -- https://gemini.google.com
    2. Copilot -- https://copilot.microsoft.com/
    3. ChatGPT -- https://chatgpt.openai.com
    4. Claude -- https://claude.ai/new

    SCANNING A PRINTED DOCUMENT WITH A SMARTPHONE OR TABLET

  7. Smartphones and tablets can be used as document scanners since they have good cameras. 
  8. Apps exist that recognize rectangular pieces of paper and will square up the image regardless of the angle you see. 
  9. I use Evernote (commercial, but with a free version) which has a built-in app to scan documents; easy to use and quick.
  10. It helps to place the document on a dark background.

    11. CONVERTING PDF TO TEXT

  11. Many of the free AI websites require entering text into the prompt, rather than a pdf, so you may have to convert a pdf to text first and this requires OCRing the pdf.
  12. A simple way to OCR the pdf is to upload it to the free website -- https://www.freeconvert.com/   -- and download the text; it only takes a few seconds to OCR it. 
  13. Be careful and don't upload or enter into any website private data, since it may become public there. 

    14. USING AI TO SUMMARIZE THE DOCUMENT

  14. Open an AI website and enter "Summarize this." (without the quotes) and paste in the text.
  15. In just a few seconds you see the summary being generated. 
  16. I find it helpful to copy the results and save them in a text file for later reference.

    17. CONCLUSIONS

  17. AI is very helpful in many ways and is easy to use.  
  18. Once you get started and have bookmarks for the AI websites, you will find many uses for them.
  19. Start by using a simple AI website and then try others as you become familiar with how they work.

Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's Class Listings Page .