We’re all busy people with many things to do and web pages to read. Quite often, you’re reading to gather information rather than for the joy of reading (though don’t forget to do that, too) and want all the details summarized in several sentences. That’s why online summarizer tools exist.
Using these nifty online tools, you can copy-paste text or URLs into a box, set your parameters for just how heavily summarized you want it to be, then click a button to get your summary. This list include our favorite tools for this purpose.
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1. Resoomer
Price: Free
Resoomer is an online tool that lets you upload or paste text into a text box. Once you press the red button, the program will automatically summarize your text. It’s not your only option, though. You can opt for “Manual” mode, where you can select how large you want your abstract to be. There’s no character limit, so your text can be as large as it needs to be. Just keep in mind that in such cases, the summary may suffer from a loss of details, some of which could be essential to understanding the paper or plot. Once a summary has been generated, you can easily save it as a PDF or document on your device.
Pros
- Offers text optimization for summaries through the use of keywords
- Can highlight relevant sentences
- Shows the percentage of text that was reduced in the summary
- Also available as a Chrome/Firefox extension, so you can easily summarize online articles
Cons
- Can’t opt to have a set number of phrases in your summary
2. IntelliPPT
Price: Free / $5
One of the more recent summarizer tools out there, IntelliPPT lets you upload PDFs and Word documents as well as copy and paste text into a box, then summarizes it for you in seconds. While the tool works quickly, the resulting text doesn’t always flow in a rational sequence. This is probably due to some key details being left out in the brief overview. IntelliPPT performs better if you’re trying to summarize a scientific paper rather than a fiction book extract. You may be able to fix this by setting a larger percentage for the summary size.
Pros
- Harnesses the power of AI to simplify our text
- Organizes text in short paragraphs that are easier to read
Cons
- Free version only allows copy-paste up to 3000 characters or uploading files up to 1MB
3. Smmry
Price: Free
With its darker fuchsia tones, Smmry has the branding style of a naughty site from the late 90s, but don’t be fooled, as it’s a great text summarization tool. Smmry lets you paste URLs or enter text directly. You can also upload files from your hard drive if that’s easier. In our experience, Smmry did a better job retaining the text’s logical flow for both our fiction and non-fiction samples. It doesn’t appear that Smmry has a set character limit, so you can summarize larger pieces of text using this tool.
Pros
- Includes a “Heat Map” that color-codes sentences by their importance as well as options to skip over questions, exclamations, and quotations.
- Shows the percentage of text that has been reduced in the summary
- Can set the number of sentences for your summary
Cons
- Sometimes headers are retained in the summary and incorrectly merged with sentences
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4. Tools4noobs
Price: Free
If you want something a little more hands-on for your article summaries, then you can give Tools4noobs a try. You can input text directly or by pasting a URL, but it also has quite a few more intricate options that let you specify the kind of summary you’re after. With this tool, we got mixed results using a fiction sample. The summary seems to feature sentences from the text in no particular order. (For example, the introductory sentence was listed at number 8 in the overview.) Results for the slightly shorter non-fiction sample were much better. The text featured an orderly progression of ideas.
Pros
- Displays summary in a numbered list
- Can trim summaries based on “relevant” words
- Highlights sentences based on relevance and keywords
- Can enlarge common words in the article
- Doesn’t limit word count
Cons
- Outdated interface
5. TextSummarization
Price: Free
TextSummarization keeps things simple for anyone to use. It lets you copy-paste the URL of an online article into it and will scan the page and convert the article into as many sentences as you choose. You can also copy and paste your text into its large text box. While TextSummarization doesn’t have a character limit, it’s its summary-creating capabilities are pretty basic. It will convert large text sample into just a few short sentences, so the essence of the content could get lost. You can try and increase the number of sentences in your overview if you need to summarize a larger text, but overall, TextSummarization works best for shorter-form text.
Pros
- Extremely simple tool
- Creates super-easy-to-read-and-understand summaries
Cons
- Quite basic, with no extra features
6. Scholarcy
Price: Free / $9.55
Scholarcy is a unique text summarizing tool best used to create article summaries. You can either use a link to a particular piece, copy/paste your text or upload it from your device. Uniquely, it creates content overviews using a flashcard-like format. Information is neatly organized under various sections, which can be accessed with a click.
Pros
- Modern interface
- Information is summarized in a concise and easy-to-access fashion
Cons
- Requires signing up with an account to get three free summaries
- Exporting function only available with a subscription
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7. QuillBot
Price: Free / $19.95 per month
QuillBot is a service that offers several services, including summarizing. You can either upload a document from your device, paste into your text to start the process. Opt to display your summary using key sentences or as a giant paragraph. Unfortunately, the character limit in the free version of QuillBot is only 600, so you won’t be able to create summaries for larger articles or book extracts. Even so, this tool works great if you want a quick summary of shorter text. It even has a “Paraphrase summary” option.
Pros
- AI-imbued tool
- Lets you adjust the summary length in real time
- Exports to .DOCX
Cons
- Doesn’t support article links
- Is limited in scope due to its character limit
8. Text Compactor
Text Compactor is one of the most basic options on our list. Nevertheless, it’s worth mentioning due to its simplicity. Fancy features aside, it does what it’s supposed to do. Your only option here is to copy-paste the text, then set your desired summary length using the slider. The text will immediately appear underneath. Surprisingly, this simple little tool created quite an accurate summary for our larger fiction sample. The logic of the original text wasn’t lost in the abstract.
Pros
- No character limit
- Super simple to use
Cons
- No extra features, such as exporting or uploading files
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9. TLDR This
Price: Free / $4 per month
TLDR This is an easy-to-use summarizer tool that lets you add links or paste in text. It can create summaries using short or detailed summaries – both options are free. You can opt to have your abstract created using short sentences or a single paragraph summarizing the most important aspects of your text. The results proved to be quite satisfactory, with the summaries retaining most of the key ideas.
Pros
- Aesthetic interface
- No character limit
- Can display keywords
- Has an AI-powered option called “AI (human-like) summary”
Cons
- Requires signing up with an account to unlock certain features
- History option is only available in premium version
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Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between summarizing and paraphrasing?
A summary is a synthesis of the key ideas of a piece of writing. The tools covered in this article create summaries based on the original text without modifying it. They identify and cherry-pick the key sentences, then work to create a logical narrative solely based on them. The end result is a short overview of the original text. When it comes to paraphrasing, it’s a restatement of another piece of writing with new words or phrases while keeping the same meaning. If you’re looking for a good online paraphrasing tool, check out our dedicated article which details the best of them.
Do summaries count as plagiarism?
If you’ve created a summary using one of the tools described in this article and are planning on posting it somewhere, then the answer might be “Yes.” To prevent an unpleasant situation, make sure you credit the book or the article the summary is derived from. On the other hand, it’s possible to create a summary of text using your own words – and this does not count as plagiarism. Note that the sites we talked about in this article are only meant to quickly help you understand what a text is about and not to paraphrase the text.
Are all online summrizer tools AI-powered?
Some of them are – but not all of them. These AI tools use machine learning to extract keywords, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs according to different criteria.
Image credit: Unsplash. All screenshots by Alexandra Arici.
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