Best for

People reading papers, contracts, and manuals who need fast answers with a pointer to the source.

Why it deserves attention

PDF Pals indexes PDF, DOCX, Markdown, EPUB, and other documents locally, runs OCR on scans, and sends only the relevant passages to the model you choose. Answers cite page numbers, so you can check the source instead of trusting a summary. It works with OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Ollama, and other providers through your own key, and documents stay on the Mac by default. Version 2 rebuilds the reader and chat interface, and the Lifetime licence covers four Macs with every future update. The trade-off is that it is a reading and question-answering tool, not a PDF editor, and v2 requires macOS 14 or later.

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Can replace

ChatPDF

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