Find mentions of a topic in a long document
Before you summarize, edit, or cite something, you have to find it. You type a topic and HILO gathers every passage that deals with it across the whole document.
Ctrl+F finds the word you typed, but not the paragraph where you said the same thing another way.
- Searches by meaning, not by exact match
- Every passage comes back with its page
- Word and PDF documents
Without signing up, it searches by keyword. With a free account (100 welcome hilos, the unit HILO uses to measure AI usage), it searches by meaning.
Scattered passages, read together
The passages exactly as written and in the order they appear, with the page of each one to get back to the original.
Topic: notice period
Clause 6.2 · p. 4Either party may terminate this agreement by giving thirty (30) calendar days' notice.
Clause 14.1 · p. 11Early termination shall require formal written notification served sixty (60) days in advance.
Annex II · p. 19Notice periods shall be counted in administrative business days.
The three passages above are in the same contract and say three different things. The second doesn't contain the word “notice” in its main sentence, and a literal search would leave it out. Read together, the problem is clear.
The point is to see, on a single screen, content that is scattered across the whole document.
The exact word is the worst criterion for finding an idea
A long document almost never names the same thing the same way twice. The register changes between the summary and the body, the author changes between chapters, the vocabulary drifts over the time it took to write.
When you have to answer for what the document says
Before you hand it in
Every mention of a central concept, from the theoretical framework to the conclusions. It's where you find that the definition in chapter 2 isn't the one you used in chapter 6.
Clauses that overlap
A long contract deals with the same matter in the clause, in the annex, and in the final provisions. Seeing them together is the review.
A finding and its traces
Where a finding appears across the executive summary, the body, and the working papers, and whether all three say the same thing.
A character's continuity
Every scene where a character or an object appears, to see whether the eyes changed color between chapter 4 and chapter 19.
Three steps, nothing to install
- You upload the document. Word or PDF. It's read in your browser.
- You type the topic. A word or a phrase. The passages that talk about it come back, each with its page and the text around it.
- You read, correct, or download. You can edit the passages right there and download the document with the changes applied, or download the list with its references.
Before and after gathering a topic
Try it with your own document
Upload the file, type a topic, and see how many mentions turn up that you didn't remember.
Ctrl+F looks for the string of characters you typed. Here the search is by meaning, so it also brings back passages that say the same thing in other words. In a long document that is often half the mentions, and almost always the ones you didn't remember. No search is perfect: it can miss a mention, which is why each result comes with its page so you can go back to the original.
It is built for long documents. The document is read in parts and, before you start, you are shown what was read; the longer it is, the longer the first read takes.
Yes. A PDF is read, searched, and coded just like a Word document. If it is a scan with no text layer, you are told before you start.
Yes. Several documents can form a folder and the topic is searched across all of them at once, with the document each passage came from shown next to it.
Yes. You edit them on the same screen where they appear and then download the full document as .docx, with the original untouched.
No. Without signing up and without a card, the search is by keyword. With a free account (100 welcome hilos) it also searches by meaning, and that is recommended for large documents: the app saves your changes to your Drive or Microsoft 365.