Across my last [N=30] clients, my record-keeping eats hours after sessions and I still miss key images during supervis…
Open your PDF document in Adobe Acrobat (ensure you are signed in and have an active AI Assistant subscription if using AI features).
If you want to extract highlights you made manually, use the Highlight tool or markup tools to mark the key points throughout your document.
To use the AI Assistant, look for the AI Assistant option (usually accessible from the right sidebar or Tools menu) and open it.
Best practiceIf you do not see the AI Assistant, check Preferences for a Generative AI section and ensure it is enabled.
In the AI Assistant panel, type a prompt such as "Summarize the key points from this document" or "List the highlights from this PDF."
Best practiceYou can ask the AI Assistant to focus on specific sections or topics by mentioning them in your prompt.
Review the AI-generated summary or list of highlights that appears in the panel.
NoteThe AI Assistant processes the visible document and generates a summary based on its content.
To save or export the summary, use the copy function in the AI Assistant panel, then paste the content into a new document or note as needed.
Best practiceFor sensitive documents, review Adobe's privacy and security settings to ensure compliance with your organization's policies.
Alternatively, to extract only manually highlighted text, open the Comments pane, select the options menu (three dots or similar), and choose to export or copy highlighted text/comments.
Best practiceExporting highlights is a reliable manual method if you want only your marked key points, not an AI-generated summary.
You can use either the AI Assistant for automatic summaries or export your manual highlights from the Comments pane for a custom list.
This runs in the Acrobat app - there is no separate API for this task.
The main benefit of AI Assistant for summaries is getting a quick overview of a document without reading it all. It creates outlines and highlights key insights. This saves time and helps you understand the main points fast, especially for long or complex files.
Yes, AI Assistant can help with many files. You use a feature called 'PDF Spaces'. You can add up to 100 PDFs, Office documents, notes, transcripts, and web links to a Space. Then, you can ask questions and AI Assistant will find answers across all those documents. This is very useful for big projects or research.
AI Assistant shows source citations so you can trust its answers. It tells you exactly where in the document it found the information. This means you can check the facts yourself. It makes the AI's answers reliable and not a 'black-box' where you don't know how it got the information.
| Feature | Documents Covered | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Single PDF Question | One PDF document at a time | Get answers and summaries from a single file. |
| PDF Spaces | Up to 100 PDFs, Office files, notes, web links | Get insights and answers across many related documents at once. |