Yes, Perplexity can read PDFs: attach a PDF to a search and ask it to summarize, explain or pull details from the document, then keep asking follow-up questions in the same session.
As of November 15, 2026, according to the Perplexity Help Center:
- How to upload: click + Attach in the search bar, or drag and drop files and folders.
- Size limit: 40 MB per file for all file types.
- Long files: short PDFs are analyzed in full. For long files, Perplexity extracts the parts most relevant to your question.
- Allowance: Free, Pro and Max include a rolling weekly upload allowance, with more on Max. Attached images count toward it. Enterprise Pro and Enterprise Max have separate limits.
- Developers: the Agent API accepts PDFs as file inputs, up to 30 documents and 50 MiB combined per request.
Related: Perplexity Agent API guide, Is Perplexity free? and Can ChatGPT read PDFs?
Source: Perplexity Help Center, File Uploads and Perplexity Docs, Working with Files
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