Claude AI Introduces PDF Image Analysis: A Game-Changer for Document Review

Claude can now view PDF images -- here's how to enable it

Move over ChatGPT, Claude's new PDF image analysis brings a fresh approach to reviewing difficult-to-digest documents. When testing out Claude's latest Beta feature, I found it could accurately interpret visual elements like diagrams and charts. This builds on Claude's existing capabilities -- from helping you build a bill-splitter to creating personalized workout plans -- by letting you extract more information from PDF documents. The ability to perceive images in PDFs means you can get more comprehensive analysis of documents without having to describe visual content manually. Claude can identify and describe key elements within PDF images, providing context-aware responses that made document review more efficient. This advancement comes in especially handy when working with technical documents, research papers, or any PDF where visual elements are crucial to understanding the content. Let's look at how to use this new PDF feature! After learning how Claude can "read" your PDFs, you might want to explore its other capabilities. Learn how to use Claude on your smartphone for on-the-go AI assistance. If you're looking to enhance your daily routine, check out these Claude prompts to boost your productivity. And for a bit of fun, did you know you can play games with Claude Artifacts?

Claude AI can now analyze PDFs - here's how to try it (and why you'll want to)

However, there's a catch -- the capability is available only through a paid professional subscription or the API. If you're not already a subscriber, here's why you may want to upgrade. Also: Anthropic warns of AI catastrophe if governments don't regulate in 18 months According to Anthropic's user guide, the new Claude 3.5 Sonnet works with any standard PDF, with a few restrictions. The PDF can't be larger than 32MG or more than 100 pages, nor can it be encrypted or password protected. To help Claude better analyze and understand a PDF, you'll want to make sure the text is clear and legible, contains standard fonts, and has its pages in the proper orientation. You can ask Claude questions about any text, pictures, charts, and tables in the PDFs you upload. Some examples given by Anthropic include: Anthropic's user guide explains how to use the new PDF analysis in the Messages API. That's fine for programmers and others who create apps using Claude AI, but what about the rest of us? That's where you'd need a subscription. Also: How the 2024 US presidential election will determine tech's future For $20 a month, a Pro plan gives you early access to new features, among other perks. And in this case, the PDF analysis is a new feature, currently in beta mode. If you have a Pro plan, click your account name or email address at the bottom of the left sidebar and select Feature Preview from the menu. In the Feature Preview window, select Visual PDFs and turn on its switch. Return to the main screen and start a new chat. Click the paperclip icon and choose a PDF from your computer. After the file's thumbnail appears under the prompt, type and submit your question or request. Also: I tested 7 AI content detectors - they're getting dramatically better at identifying plagiarism You can start by asking Claude to do something simple, like summarize the file. You can then move on to submit specific questions about the text in the file. From there, try asking it about a specific image, table, or chart. To do this, refer to the page number that contains the image or chart. When doing this, use the logical number (the number displayed by your PDF viewer) and not the physical page number (the number displayed on the page). In Adobe Reader, for example, hover over the physical page number on the right, and the logical page number appears. If a PDF file is too large for Claude to swallow, you can split it into smaller files and upload each one separately. On Anthropic's GitHub page, you'll also find a few sample PDFs that you can download and submit to Claude for analysis and answers.

Claud AI can now analyze PDFs - here's how to try it (and why you'll want to)

However, there's a catch -- the capability is available only through a paid professional subscription or the API. If you're not already a subscriber, here's why you may want to upgrade. Also: Anthropic warns of AI catastrophe if governments don't regulate in 18 months According to Anthropic's user guide, the new Claude 3.5 Sonnet works with any standard PDF, with a few restrictions. The PDF can't be larger than 32MG or more than 100 pages, nor can it be encrypted or password protected. To help Claude better analyze and understand a PDF, you'll want to make sure the text is clear and legible, contains standard fonts, and has its pages in the proper orientation. You can ask Claude questions about any text, pictures, charts, and tables in the PDFs you upload. Some examples given by Anthropic include: Anthropic's user guide explains how to use the new PDF analysis in the Messages API. That's fine for programmers and others who create apps using Claude AI, but what about the rest of us? That's where you'd need a subscription. Also: How the 2024 US presidential election will determine tech's future For $20 a month, a Pro plan gives you early access to new features, among other perks. And in this case, the PDF analysis is a new feature, currently in beta mode. If you have a Pro plan, click your account name or email address at the bottom of the left sidebar and select Feature Preview from the menu. In the Feature Preview window, select Visual PDFs and turn on its switch. Return to the main screen and start a new chat. Click the paperclip icon and choose a PDF from your computer. After the file's thumbnail appears under the prompt, type and submit your question or request. Also: I tested 7 AI content detectors - they're getting dramatically better at identifying plagiarism You can start by asking Claude to do something simple, like summarize the file. You can then move on to submit specific questions about the text in the file. From there, try asking it about a specific image, table, or chart. To do this, refer to the page number that contains the image or chart. When doing this, use the logical number (the number displayed by your PDF viewer) and not the physical page number (the number displayed on the page). In Adobe Reader, for example, hover over the physical page number on the right, and the logical page number appears. If a PDF file is too large for Claude to swallow, you can split it into smaller files and upload each one separately. On Anthropic's GitHub page, you'll also find a few sample PDFs that you can download and submit to Claude for analysis and answers.

Claude AI Can Now See Images Within PDF With This Feature

Anthropic released another new artificial intelligence (AI) feature for its chatbot Claude on Friday. The feature, dubbed PDF image understanding, now allows Claude to see and process images embedded within PDF files including charts and graphics. This capability has been added to the recently released Claude 3.5 Sonnet AI model. The company claims that this ability will allow the chatbot to accurately understand complex documents and offer better analysis of the data. The Anthropic application packaging interface (API) also supports PDF inputs. This feature is available in beta. In its support documents, Anthropic detailed the new PDF support feature. The image understanding capability in PDF has been added to the Claude 3.5 Sonnet version 20241022, and it can process images in PDF as well as support PDF inputs. Breaking down the first capability, Claude can now see and process images, charts, and graphics added to a PDF to perform a deeper analysis of the document. Once done, users can ask the AI queries about the particular images and it can answer with relevant information. So far, Claude accepted images as input and could answer queries about them, however, it could not process images attached to a document. With this feature, Anthropic now allows users to get responses about PDFs in greater detail. The feature is likely aimed at the enterprise users of the chatbot who use it to analyse sales and marketing documents as well as other such files. Claude 3.5 Sonnet now also accepts PDF as an input, which means users can now upload PDF files directly and let users ask queries about them. This brings Claude's capabilities on par with Google's NotebookLM, which is a dedicated platform for PDF and other file types. Currently, the maximum file size of a PDF uploaded to Claude can be 32MB with a maximum page count of 1,000. Additionally, the chatbot cannot process PDFs which are password-protected or have encryption on them. Anthropic will make the feature available on Amazon Bedrock and Google Vertex AI soon.