What does 'chat with documents' mean?

Chatting with documents means uploading a PDF, report, or any text file and then asking questions in plain language. The AI reads the document and answers your questions based on what's actually in it — not from general knowledge. You get precise, sourced answers without scrolling through the whole document.

How accurate is Edithly's document chat?

Edithly's chat is grounded entirely in your uploaded document. Every answer includes a reference to the relevant section of the source — so you can verify the answer yourself. Hallucinations are minimised because the AI is constrained to the document's content.

What file types can I chat with in Edithly?

Edithly supports PDF, Word (DOCX), plain text (TXT), CSV, Excel (XLS/XLSX), URLs, and YouTube video transcripts. Upload any of these and start asking questions immediately.

Can I chat with multiple documents at once?

Yes. Edithly's Repository feature lets you group multiple documents into a collection. You can then ask questions across the entire collection — Edithly identifies which document contains the relevant information and cites it in the answer.

Is Edithly's document chat different from ChatGPT?

Yes. ChatGPT answers from its training data — it doesn't read your specific document unless you paste the text in. Edithly reads your actual uploaded document and answers only from that content. This makes it far more accurate for document-specific questions.

Chat With Your Documents: Ask Anything, Get Instant AI Answers

Direct answer: Upload any document to Edithly. Type a question in plain English. Get an answer — with the source section highlighted — in under 5 seconds. No scrolling, no keyword search, no skimming.

The Problem with Reading Dense Documents

A 200-page technical report. A 50-page legal contract. A 30-chapter textbook. These documents contain exactly the information you need — but finding it is a project in itself.

Ctrl+F finds keywords, not answers. Skimming misses context. Reading everything is not feasible when you have 12 other documents to get through.

Document chat solves this. You don't read the document — you interrogate it.

How Edithly's Document Chat Works

Upload Your Document

Drop in a PDF, Word file, paste a URL, or add a YouTube video. Edithly ingests the full content — including tables, footnotes, and embedded text in images (via OCR where supported).

Ask Your Question

Type any question in plain language:

"What is the revenue growth figure for Q3?"
"What are the main risk factors mentioned in Section 4?"
"Summarise the methodology used in this study."
"What does the author recommend for implementation?"

Get a Sourced Answer

Edithly returns the answer with a direct reference to the relevant section — paragraph, page, or section heading. You can verify the source immediately.

Follow Up

Ask follow-up questions in the same conversation. The chat maintains context — you're having a conversation with your document, not just running isolated queries.

What You Can Ask

Specific fact extraction: "What was the total budget allocated to R&D in FY2024?"

Comparative questions: "How does the proposed approach differ from the current one?"

Summary requests: "Summarise the key findings of Section 3."

Inference questions: "Based on the data in this report, what is the likely trend for next year?"

Definition requests: "What does the document define as 'material adverse change'?"

Cross-reference questions: "Where does the document mention the limitations of this approach?"

Use Cases by Role

Legal Professionals

Review contracts, NDAs, and agreements without reading every clause. Ask Edithly: "What are the termination conditions?" or "What IP does the client retain?" Get precise answers with clause references in seconds.

Research Students and Academics

Ask research papers questions without reading them fully first. Identify whether a paper is relevant to your work. Extract methodology, sample size, and findings in seconds. Edithly is used by PhD students and researchers at universities in India, Australia, and the USA to accelerate literature reviews.

Sales and Business Development

Upload a client's RFP and ask: "What are the evaluation criteria?" or "What technical specifications are required?" Understand the document in minutes before responding.

HR and Compliance Teams

Upload policy documents, employee handbooks, and regulatory guidelines. Ask specific compliance questions and get referenced answers. Ensure no clause is missed.

Students

Ask textbook chapters questions to extract the exact information relevant to an assignment or exam topic. Chat with a research paper without reading it entirely. Ask a past paper's answer key "why is this the correct answer?" and get an explanation.

Multi-Document Chat with Repositories

For complex research or analysis requiring multiple sources:

Create a Repository in Edithly
Upload all relevant documents (reports, papers, policies, contracts)
Ask questions across the entire collection
Edithly identifies which document contains the answer and cites it

This turns a collection of documents into a searchable, conversational knowledge base — far more powerful than keyword search.

Source Attribution: The Critical Difference

The most important feature of Edithly's chat is source attribution. Every answer references the exact passage, section, or page it came from. This means:

You can verify any answer instantly
You can cite the source in your own work
You never have to trust the AI blindly

This is critical in legal, academic, compliance, and research contexts where accountability matters.

Start Chatting with Your Documents

Upload any document and ask your first question — free, no credit card required.