Explain Paper - AI Research Paper Helper for Easier Reading
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Explain Paper Brief Overview
Explain Paper is an AI-powered web tool designed to make research papers easier to understand. You upload a PDF, highlight confusing sentences or sections, and the tool instantly rewrites them in simpler language. It is built specifically for academic and technical documents, helping students, researchers, and professionals cut through jargon and focus on the main ideas.
Explainpaper is used by hundreds of thousands of researchers and is positioned as a way to “read research papers 10x faster” by combining in-context explanations, summaries, and question-answering in one interface.
Simple How-To-Use Guide
- Sign up or start free
Go to explainpaper.com and create a free account with email, Google, or GitHub. - Upload a paper (PDF)
Click “Upload Your First Paper” and select a research paper in PDF format. The tool loads it into a reader-style view. - Highlight confusing text
When something is hard to understand, highlight the sentence, paragraph, or formula. Explainpaper shows a simpler explanation in a side panel. - Chat with your paper
Use the chat feature to ask questions like “What is the main contribution?” or “How does this method work compared to X?” The answers are based on the content of the uploaded paper, not generic web knowledge. - Review summaries and insights (Pro)
On paid plans, you can generate full-paper summaries, outlines, and other insights to understand the structure and key points faster.
Key Features and Functions
- In-context explanations
Highlight any sentence and get an instant, plain-language explanation. You can adjust complexity (beginner to expert) and get explanations in 50+ languages. - Chat with your paper
Ask natural-language questions about the paper and get targeted answers. The tool can cite specific sections and supports follow-up questions, helping you dive deeper into methods, results, and assumptions. - Auto-generated insights and outlines (Pro)
View smart outlines, key points, and how concepts connect, so you can grasp the paper’s structure without reading every line. - Snap Explain for formulas and graphs (Pro)
Explain math formulas and visual elements like charts using AI-powered explanations. - Zotero integration (Free+)
Import your Zotero library to keep your research workflow in one place. - Multilingual support
Explanations are available in over 50 languages, which is useful for non‑native English speakers reading complex papers.
Explain Paper Pricing
Explainpaper currently offers three main tiers:
- Free – $0/month
- Unlimited highlight-based explanations
- Ask follow-up questions about selected text
- Import your Zotero library
- Uses basic AI models
- Pro – $16/month (monthly billing)
- Everything in Free
- Powered by more advanced AI models
- Generate summaries for entire papers
- Save highlights and explanations
- Ask questions about the whole paper, not just snippets
- Snap Explain for math and graphs
- Teams – custom pricing
- Everything in Pro
- Team management features
- Priority support
- Volume discounts for organizations
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