PDFCite

What PDFCite is

PDFCite is a browser extension for asking questions about PDF documents and receiving AI answers linked to clickable citations. Selecting a citation highlights the passage it refers to. Users can also snip diagrams, tables, charts or equations on screen for AI explanations. Its citation graph displays connections among papers, while citation tools generate references, preview them and fetch full-text PDFs from Open Access repositories. PDFCite names PubMed, arXiv, Semantic Scholar and Google Scholar as libraries it works with, and supports multiple PDFs in a chat. It says it works with online PDFs without uploads and caches documents locally on the user's disk. The site says documents stay on the user's device and AI requests pass through its gateway without PDFCite accessing their content. The extension can be started without signup, but AI features require a free account; no credit card is required. The Free plan costs nothing, with unlimited citation and graph features and AI features described as having generous limits. Chrome and Firefox are available.

Who it suits

It suits readers and researchers who work with PDFs and want cited AI answers, visual explanations or ways to explore links among papers. It may also suit users seeking citation tools without uploading online PDFs.

Limits

The Free plan includes unlimited citations and graph features. AI features are free with generous limits, but the page does not provide a specific quota.

Getting started

1. Open the PDFCite website
2. Install the Chrome extension or Firefox add-on
3. Start the extension without signing up for basic access
4. Create a free account to use AI features
5. Open online PDFs or work with multiple PDFs in a chat

Verdict

PDFCite brings document questions, citation tools and paper-network exploration into a browser extension. Its free plan covers citation and graph features, while AI access requires an account and has unspecified limits.