Reading digital newspapers in PDF format has its pros and cons. On the upside, PDFs allow for focused reading—there’s no temptation to switch tabs or click related articles. Additionally, PDFs provide plenty of visual and textual clues like titles, subtitles, highlighted sections, pictures, and infographics to help determine whether an article is worth the time.

Yet, when tackling lengthy articles or multiple pages, a summarizer assistant can save significant effort. Imagine a tool that extracts text from PDFs, identifies key facts and quotes, and delivers concise summaries tailored to specific needs. Here’s how the project took shape:

• Conceptualizing the Workflow: The first step involved outlining the assistant’s capabilities—extracting the article, identifying key points, and summarizing them. From this, a clear workflow emerged.
• Initial Experiments with a Browser Extension: Since many PDF readers are browser-based, a browser extension initially seemed like the best solution. However, challenges arose in coding functionality to pinpoint which page was open, leading to a pivot.
• Switching to a Command-Line Tool (CLI): A lower-level approach was taken by building a CLI tool that parses pages, sends text to an API (leveraging LLMs), and saves the summaries as JSON. This method yielded functional results and became the project’s foundation.
• Adding a Basic User Interface: A simple UI was introduced to preview the JSON summaries, helping to refine prompts and improve output quality.
• Enhancements with PDF.js Integration: PDF.js was then integrated to build a viewer within the interface, allowing seamless synchronization of page numbers. This eliminated the need to jump between the command line and the browser.

With the basics in place, additional features were developed:

• Advanced Prompting Options: The tool now supports querying a single page or multiple pages at once for lengthy articles. Additionally, users can define themes for extracting content when several articles appear on a single page.
• Handling Formatting Challenges: Formatting issues with italicized text or embedded quotes were addressed at this stage, ensuring clarity in the summaries.

To finalize the project:

• A modern builder was added, and the code was rewritten in TypeScript for better maintainability.
• A serverless backend function was implemented to handle API requests securely, protecting the API key.
• The entire workflow was refactored for production-level performance and stability.

Upon reviewing the initial schema, the tool now checks every box. With all key features in place, it has become a valuable daily tool, as you can see in the video demo.

This project’s success raises an exciting question: what’s the next tool you want to build? Each new project provides a chance to solve unique challenges, refine technical skills, or innovate in meaningful ways. The possibilities are truly limitless.