--- title: "Ask questions about a PDF and check the cited pages" description: "Ask questions about a PDF and get answers that quote the page they came from. Click a page chip to jump there. Works on short scans and images too." url: https://help.pdfbetter.com/ai/chat-with-pdf-citations/ collection: "AI with citations" section: "Ask & summarize" updated: 2026-10-18 publisher: "PDFBetter (AI Generated Inc.)" --- # Ask questions about a PDF and check the cited pages > Open the document, go to the **Ask** tab of the AI assistant, type a question and click **Ask**. Answers come only from that file and list **Sources**: click a **p. 4** chip to jump to the quoted page. Each message costs 1 credit. - Counts toward: AI credits 1. **Open the Ask tab**: In the editor, click the yellow ✨ **AI assistant** button in the top bar (or **More** (**⋯**) → **AI assistant**). From the dashboard, click ✨ **AI assistant** → **Chat with a PDF** and pick a document. The panel opens on **Ask this document**. 2. **Ask a question**: Type in **Your question**, or click a suggestion like **What are the key dates and deadlines?**. Click **Ask**. 3. **Read the answer**: The answer streams in. Page numbers in the text and the chips under **Sources** link to the pages it quotes. 4. **Check the page**: Click a **p. 4** chip (**Go to page 4**). The editor scrolls to that page so you can read the quote in context. | Action | Keys | | --- | --- | | Send the question | `Enter` | | New line in the question | `Shift` + `Enter` | ## How citations work Every quote in an answer is checked word for word against the text of the page it names. Quotes that don't match are removed, and the answer tells you how many ("1 quote couldn’t be matched word-for-word to the page and was removed"). If no quote survives, you'll see **No verified page quote for this answer — check it against the document.** If the answer isn't in the document, it says **Not found in this document.** instead of guessing. When an answer was drafted but couldn't be verified against the page text, it is withheld and says so. ## Stopping and failures Click **Stop** while an answer is streaming to cancel it. A stopped or interrupted answer shows **Nothing was charged.** with a **Try again** button. ## Scans, photos and images A document with a text layer is always answered from its text. A short file with no text at all (a scan, a photo converted to PDF) is read from page images: up to 5 pages on Free and 10 on Pro and Business. Those sources show **Read from the page image — no text layer to quote**. Longer scans need OCR first; use the **Scan** tab or [OCR PDF](https://pdfbetter.com/tools/ocr-pdf/). To ask about a photo, screenshot or chart, use [Chat with an image](https://pdfbetter.com/tools/chat-with-image/). The image is saved to your documents as a one-page PDF and answers cite it as page 1. > **Tip:** Ask one thing at a time and name the section if you know it ("In the termination clause, what notice is required?"). Narrow questions get tighter quotes. ### Can I ask across several PDFs at once? Yes, in a workspace. Add the documents, then use **Ask across documents**. See [Ask across several documents](https://help.pdfbetter.com/ai/ai-workspaces-briefs-quizzes/). ### The answer ignores the end of my document. Your plan reads up to 100 pages per document on Free (600 on Pro, 2,000 on Business). The panel lists pages that weren't included. ### Is my chat saved? In **Standard AI** mode, yes. Turn off AI history in [Data & privacy](https://pdfbetter.com/app/settings/privacy/) if you don't want that; see [What happens to your documents when you use AI](https://help.pdfbetter.com/privacy-security/ai-and-your-data/). ## Related articles - [Summarize a PDF, search it by meaning, or map it](https://help.pdfbetter.com/ai/summarize-pdf-ai.md): In the AI assistant, the Summary tab writes key points that link to their pages (2 credits), and Search finds passages by meaning (1 credit). For a visual overview, PDF to mind map builds a map whose nodes quote their pages. - [Ask across several documents and make briefs, slides or quizzes](https://help.pdfbetter.com/ai/ai-workspaces-briefs-quizzes.md): Create a workspace in Workspaces, add documents, and use Ask across documents (2 credits per answer) or Make something from these documents to generate a brief, slide outline, quiz or audio brief. Every citation names the document, version and page. - [How accurate AI answers are, and how to check them](https://help.pdfbetter.com/ai/ai-privacy-accuracy.md): AI answers can be wrong or miss nuance, so every result links to the pages it came from and chat quotes are checked word for word against the page. Check numbers, dates and obligations against the cited page before you rely on them. - [Make a scanned PDF editable and searchable with OCR](https://help.pdfbetter.com/editing/make-scanned-pdf-editable-ocr.md): Open the OCR PDF tool, upload the scan, pick the Languages and pages and click Recognize text. The result looks identical but has a searchable text layer; click Open in the editor to change its text. OCR is counted per page recognized. - [What happens to your documents when you use AI](https://help.pdfbetter.com/privacy-security/ai-and-your-data.md): AI features send your document's text to OpenAI's API with storage turned off; scan restoration sends page images to fal.ai. Your documents aren't used to train models. In Settings → Data & privacy you can choose Private AI or delete stored AI data. --- Source: https://help.pdfbetter.com/ai/chat-with-pdf-citations/ · PDFBetter Help Center · Last checked against the product 2026-10-18. Questions: support@pdfbetter.com