I Built an Offline AI Tool for PDFs — Here’s What It Can Do

I built a side project called Collate (https://collate.one) because I was frustrated with how clunky and cloud-dependent most PDF tools are. Subscriptions, uploads, privacy risks — no thanks. I wanted something simple: an AI workspace for PDFs that runs fully offline on your Mac.

Here are 5 ways you can use it:
1. Organize & merge PDFs
Add multiple PDFs into Collate and merge them into a single document you can export. You can then ask questions across all the files at once. You can also create and manage collections to keep your docs organized.
2. Highlight & export
Mark important sections as you read. Collate lets you export your highlights as a shareable link, so you can quickly pass key passages to others.
3. One-click summary
Dense 100-page report? Collate generates a clean summary you can export and share as a link.
4. Ask questions with citations
Instead of scrolling endlessly, just ask something like: “What are the key risks mentioned in this document?” Collate finds the relevant passages, highlights them in the PDF, and lets you export the answer with citations as a shareable link.
5. Guided reading mode
Get AI-generated questions as you go, track progress, and mark sections as “done” — like having a study buddy built into your PDFs.

💡 Everything runs locally. No internet required. Your PDFs never leave your device.

If you work with PDFs a lot which of these would save you the most time? And if I added a #6 way to Collate, what would you want?