Can NotebookLM read PDFs?
Yes. Gemini Notebook is excellent with PDFs up to 200 MB / 500,000 words. It extracts text with structure, handles tables (mostly), and provides inline citations to specific pages. Image-only or scanned PDFs need OCR first.
In more detail
Gemini Notebook handles PDFs better than nearly any other AI tool. Full-text extraction preserves paragraph structure, section headings, and most tables. Citations link to specific passages. Limits: per-PDF, up to 200 MB or 500K words. Per-notebook, the standard service supports up to 50 sources. Limitations: mathematical notation may be misread; image-only or scanned PDFs need OCR first; complex tables with merged cells get mangled. For literature reviews with 50-100+ PDFs, Gemini Notebook is the leading tool.
Get one-click capture for NotebookLM
Gemini Notebook Toolkit saves ChatGPT, Claude, YouTube, Reddit, and any web page to NotebookLM in one click. Free to install.
Install Gemini Notebook Toolkit