Read a long PDF without trusting it blindly
A sixty-page report lands on your desk with a decision due tomorrow. You need two things from it: what it says overall, and whether one specific claim is really in there. Skimming gives you neither. A summary you cannot check gives you a confident answer you cannot defend in the meeting.
Send the PDF to @vustbot and decide which job you need. Ask for an overview when you need the whole shape of the document. Ask one specific question when you need one fact, and ask for the passage the answer comes from.
A worked example: one claim, checked against its passage
This is an illustrative exchange about a made-up vendor contract.
Your question: "Can we cancel before the end of the first year, and what does it cost?"
The answer: "Yes. Early cancellation is allowed with 60 days' written notice. The fee is three months of service charges."
The passage behind it: "Either party may terminate this Agreement prior to the end of the Initial Term upon sixty (60) days written notice, subject to an early termination fee equal to three (3) months of Service Fees."
Now you can check the answer yourself in ten seconds. The notice period matches. The fee matches. And you notice something the short answer did not say: the clause says "either party", so the vendor can cancel early too. That is worth raising before you sign.
Check the answer against the source, every time
- Find the passage in the PDF. Search the document for a distinctive phrase from the quoted passage.
- Compare numbers word for word. "Three months" and "three months of service charges" can be different amounts.
- Read one paragraph before and after. Exceptions often sit right next to the rule.
When the PDF is a scan
A scanned PDF is a picture of text. If an answer seems to ignore a section you can see on the page, the text of that section may not have come through. Ask about that section directly, or send a cleaner copy of those pages. Check coverage by section, not by page count.
Open @vustbot, send the PDF, and ask the one question your decision depends on.