Summarizing software

[Bob Weisner]

Hi:

Does anyone know of a good computer program that will summarize documents?

Thanks,

[Chuck Wintle]

Hi:

Does anyone know of a good computer program that will summarize documents?

Thanks,

what in the document do you wish to summarize?

[Bob Weisner]

The whole document.

It is 8 pages in length and I just want to get it summerized down to about 200 words.

[Vaughn McMillan]

Bob, I don't think such a product exists, or if it does, I've sure not heard of it. (And I'm in the documentation business.)

Based on experience I've had with software to "dress up" English writing (it was a total joke, even though it was marketed as a legit business tool), I wouldn't trust a piece of software to extract the salient points of an 8 page document. Just MHO.

- Vaughn

[Frank Chaffee]

Bob, I don't think such a product exists…Vaughn

OK Vaughn,
Spit it out, how much do you charge?
Frank

[Doug Shepard]

Maybe you could try one of those foreign language translation programs. They're always dropping stuff out of the translation. Maybe if you convert it back and forth from English to another language about 20 times it will discard enough text.

[Al Navas]

Microsoft Word: Tools | Autosummarize results in a menu of options on how you wish to do it. Word does a fair job, depending on the complexity of the document. For 8 pages it may be OK.

Good luck!


Al

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

That's called editing and you need to know both the language its grammar, the subject matter of the discussion, and your target audience.

If a computer could do that it'd be one scary computer.

[Brett Baldwin]

The H.A.L. 9000 can do it for you, but it probably won't. In fact, you might want to avoid this computer altogether. It has an attitude problem.