Text summarizer

How the summarizer works

You give the tool a source in one of two ways. Paste text straight into the editor, or drop a public article URL into the URL field and let the tool fetch the page and pull out its main body. A URL takes priority when both are filled in, so clear the URL field if you want to summarize what is in the editor. Then you choose a format and, for everything except the TLDR, a length, and press Summarize. The summary streams in word by word so you can start reading before it finishes.

Under the hood the summarizer reads your whole source, works out which sentences carry the argument and which are filler or repetition, and rebuilds the important parts in the shape you asked for. It is told to summarize only what is present in the text, not to add outside facts or opinions. That is the honest framing of every AI summary: it is a fast condensation of your material, not an independent fact-check of it, so the quality of the summary tracks the quality and clarity of what you paste.

The four summary formats, and when to use each

The format you pick changes the shape of the output far more than the length control does, so choose it for the job rather than out of habit.

• Paragraph gives you flowing prose, a smaller version of the original that still reads like writing. Use it when the summary itself needs to be presentable: an executive note at the top of a report, a recap email, or the opening of a blog post.
• Bullets put every distinct idea on its own line. This is the best format for study notes, meeting minutes, and any time you want to scan rather than read. It also makes gaps obvious, because a thin bullet list usually means the source was thin too.
• Key points keep only the essential takeaways and deliberately drop supporting detail. Reach for it when you need the three or four things that actually matter from a long, padded document.
• TLDR compresses everything to one or two sentences. It is for the moment when someone asks what a thing is about and wants the answer in a breath, not a briefing. Because it is so short, it is the format most likely to lose nuance, so pair it with a fuller format if the stakes are high.

Step by step

1. Paste your text into the editor, or put a public article URL in the URL field.
2. Pick a format: paragraph, bullets, key points, or TLDR. Set the length for the first three if you want it shorter or longer.
3. Add a keyword or two in the focus field if you only care about one angle of a broad source. The summary will lean toward those topics.
4. Press Summarize and read the result as it streams in.
5. Compare the summary against the original for anything important, then copy it out.

A worked example

Here is a short source passage and what each format does with it. Suppose you paste this paragraph from a council report:

The city council approved a revised transport budget on Tuesday. The plan adds two new bus routes to the eastern suburbs, extends weekend tram service, and funds forty new bicycle racks at major stations. Funding comes from an underused road-resurfacing reserve, so there are no new taxes. The first bus route starts in March and the tram extension follows in summer, though both depend on hiring enough drivers.

A TLDRmight read: “The council approved a no-new-tax transport budget adding bus routes, weekend tram service, and bike parking, starting in March.” The key points format would surface the three things that matter: what was approved, where the money came from, and the timeline risk around driver hiring. The bullets format would list each measure separately so you could paste it straight into notes. The paragraph format would read like the original, just tighter, keeping the no-new-tax framing and the caveat. Notice that none of them add a figure or a claim the source did not contain. That is the behaviour to expect, and the thing to verify if a summary ever surprises you.

Tips for better summaries

• Summarize structured documents section by section. One pass over a whole research paper blends the methods into the results; summarizing each section keeps the structure that makes the paper readable.
• Use the keyword focus when a source covers several topics and you only care about one. A long earnings article summarized with the keyword “hiring” will pull out the staffing angle instead of giving you a balanced overview.
• If the source is messy copy from a PDF or email, clean the obvious line-break noise first. A summarizer reads broken text more literally than a person does.
• Treat the bullet count as a signal. If a long article only yields four thin bullets, the article was probably padding, which is useful to know before you spend time on it.

How this differs from copy-and-trim

The slow manual way to summarize is to read everything, highlight the sentences that matter, and stitch them together. That works, but it keeps the original wording and often the original length, and it falls apart when the key idea is spread across several paragraphs rather than sitting in one quotable line. The summarizer rebuilds the idea in its own words at the length you choose, which is why a four-paragraph argument can become a single clean sentence. The trade is that you give up the guarantee that every word came verbatim from the source, so when you need an exact quotation, copy it directly rather than lifting it from a summary.