Gemini's new free feature can save you hours of tedious PDF analysis

Those of you who use Google Gemini for free can now take advantage of a feature formerly limited to paid subscribers. On Thursday, the Google Gemini account on X announced that the document upload capability is now available to all Gemini users.

How it works

Using this option, free users can upload a variety of file types to Gemini for analysis. These include PDFs, text files, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and Google Docs files. After Gemini processes your uploaded file, you can request an AI-generated summary and ask questions about the content in the file. 

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The new feature comes courtesy of Gemini 2.0 Flash, which aims to be faster and more robust than previous models.

To use this feature, head to the Gemini website or launch the iOS or Android app. Click or tap the plus sign at the prompt. To upload a file from your PC or device, select Files. To upload a file from Google Drive, select Drive. Choose the file you want analyzed. 

Back at the prompt, you can start by asking Gemini to summarize the file. Beyond that, submit any question you want about the content to see how the AI responds.

Sounds good. But… 

Yes, there’s always a but. 

The $20-per-month paid version of Gemini Advanced can handle a lot more file types than the free version. Using the paid version, you can also upload CSV files, Excel spreadsheets, CSS files, HTML files, JavaScript files, PHP files, and many other files, many of which are used by developers. 

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If you use Gemini for free and don’t need to analyze these other file types, this is still a handy and helpful new option.