Summarising text

What this does

Task menu ▸ Analyze ▸ Summarize

Produces a summary of roughly the word count you give. Unlike Shorten it does not rewrite the text but restates its substance.

First, the scope question

If you have text selected, the add-in asks first: "You have selected text. Shall only the selection be processed, or the entire document?" – with the answers Selection only and Entire document.

The question exists because both are plausible. A selection does not necessarily mean only the selection was meant.

Then the word count

The add-in tells you the word count of the source text and suggests around 20 % of it, rounded to a multiple of five. You can enter any number up to the length of the original.

As a rule of thumb: 50 words is three or four sentences, 150 words a paragraph, 400 words half a page.

What to check

A summary decides what matters – and that can differ from your judgement. Check in particular:

• whether qualifications and conditions survived,
• whether figures and deadlines were carried over correctly,
• whether anything has appeared that was not in the original.

The last point is the important one: a summary that reads smoothly and plausibly can still contain a statement that appears nowhere in the source.

When nothing happens

• No text selected and no content in the document – there is nothing to summarise.
• Word count larger than the source text – the add-in asks again.