Using Summarize in macOS to Shorten Documents

Summarize icon

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Mac users don’t need to use any third-party tools to generate text summaries. Apple’s macOS already has a built-in service that can do the job.

Summarize has been part of the Mac operating system for quite some time now. It works with almost any text document to summarize multiple paragraphs into a few paragraphs or even a few sentences.

The tool tries to minimize text by removing sentences or paragraphs, while preserving the original message as much as possible. It is part of Mac Services and the setting is disabled by default.

1. Open System Preferences and click Keyboard.
2. In the Shortcut keys tab, there is a menu on the left. Find and click Services.
3. Then scroll through the list on the right to the Text section.
4. Click the checkbox next to To summarise. Users can optionally assign a hotkey to activate the service. For example, Option-Command-S.

Open a text document such as Pages, TextEdit or even in Apple Notes to use the service. If the setting cannot be found with a third-party app, or if it doesn’t work, the text may need to be copied and pasted into a text editor.

Summarize doesn’t seem to work with PDF documents. It can handle articles in browsers such as: Safari and firefox. Text in the Mail app can also be summarized.

After opening a document or finding text in an app, click anywhere in the document and press Command-A to select all the text. Or click and drag the mouse to highlight text.

Then users can press the keyboard shortcut they created for Summarize, or click the app name in the menu bar, choose Servicesand click To summarise.

A window with an abbreviated version of the document appears.

A slider controls the summary size. Options are available to display the document as sentences or paragraphs.

By choosing Sentences, Summarize will extract individual sentences from paragraphs and remove the rest of the section if the tool thinks it is unimportant.

The Paragraphs option removes text by paragraph. This setting can make the summary clearer by displaying paragraphs with context.

Summarizing is a useful tool for quickly getting a shorter document version, but it won’t replace a human editor. But for personal use, or as a base for a longer edited document, it works fine.