Paste the text you do not have time to read twice: an article, a report, meeting notes, a long email chain. Say how long the summary should be and what you most need from it. Hemmingway writes the main point first, then the decisions, dates, numbers and names a reader should not miss.
The summary is drawn only from what you pasted, with no background or opinion added. It can still go wrong: it can leave out a point that mattered to you, or make a cautious sentence sound certain. Check anything you will act on against the original. A summary of someone else's writing is still their ideas, so credit the source if you use it.
What makes a summary useful
- Say what you need it for. "What was decided and who does what next" gets a different summary from "the argument in brief".
- Set a length. Three sentences, five bullet points, one paragraph. A length forces choices, and choices are what a summary is.
- Check the numbers, names and dates. These are where summaries slip.
- Look for the lost "unless". Conditions and exceptions are the first things to go when text is squeezed. If the original says "only if" or "except", the summary should too.
An example
Given these meeting notes, with three sentences asked for and a focus on what was decided and who does what next:
Site meeting, Tuesday. Started late because of traffic. The roof survey is back and it is worse than we hoped: the east side needs new battens, which adds two weeks. Priya will ask the supplier for a revised quote by Friday. After some back and forth we agreed to hold the kitchen order until the quote is in. Tom raised parking for the scaffolders again and it was not settled.
a summary along these lines is what to expect:
The roof survey found the east side needs new battens, which adds two weeks. Priya will ask the supplier for a revised quote by Friday, and the kitchen order is on hold until it is in. Parking for the scaffolders is still not settled.
The traffic and the back and forth are gone. The two weeks, Priya's Friday and the open question about parking are not.
Common questions
Is the AI summarizer free?
Yes. Hemmingway has a free trial with no card needed, and this tool opens it with your answers filled in. You sign up once, and the summary is written in the chat.
Can an AI summary be wrong?
Yes. It can drop a point, merge two things that were separate, or state something more firmly than the text did. Hemmingway can be wrong and still sound certain, so for a contract, a medical letter or anything about money, read the original.
Can it summarise a PDF or a long document?
The form takes text you paste. For a long document, open the app and attach the file. Hemmingway reads files you attach, and you can ask for the summary there.
Will it sound like AI?
It is built not to. Hemmingway-1, the model behind it, came first on sounding like a person in our own blind test, Human-Likeness. It still helps to read it aloud and change any word you would not use.
What is the difference between summarising and shortening?
A summary reports what a text says, for someone who has not read it. Shortening keeps the text as your own message and trims it. To cut your own draft, use the text shortener. To make a hard text easier to read and keep all of it, use the text simplifier.