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How to create PDF Spaces in Adobe Acrobat and turn your documents into an AI workspace
PDFs are great for keeping information in one place, but they are not always easy to work with once a project starts to spread across reports, presentations, spreadsheets, links, and notes.
Adobe Acrobat’s PDF Spaces feature is designed for exactly that kind of messy document work.
Instead of opening each file separately and trying to piece together the useful parts yourself, you can create a PDF Space that brings your sources into one AI-powered workspace.
From there, Acrobat can generate an overview, summarise the material, answer questions, pull out comparisons, and point you back to the original source with citations.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to create a PDF Space in Adobe Acrobat, add your files and links, use AI Assistant to explore the content, and share the finished workspace with other people.
Please note: All of the information is correct as of June 2026. Adobe regularly updates its products, so some steps or features may change.
What is PDF Spaces?
PDF Spaces are AI-powered workspaces inside Adobe Acrobat that let you bring together PDFs, Office files, web links, and notes in one place.
Acrobat is part of Adobe's broader suite of tools like Photoshop and Adobe Express, which many people use for work everyday.
What you'll need
You’ll need Adobe Acrobat with access to PDF Spaces, plus the files, links, or notes you want to add.
PDF Spaces supports PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoint files, Excel spreadsheets, text files, pasted text, public web links, and supported cloud storage sources.
It's worth noting that password-protected files, videos, handwritten notes, and some complex graphics are not supported.
Open PDF Spaces and add your files
Open Adobe Acrobat, sign in, and select PDF Spaces from the left-hand panel. From there, choose Create a PDF Space to start building your workspace.
Acrobat will then ask you to add the material you want to work with. You can upload files from your device, choose documents from Adobe cloud storage, import from supported third-party services, paste copied text, or add a public webpage link.
It’s worth being selective at this stage. PDF Spaces works best when everything you add belongs to the same project, question, or decision, so avoid turning it into a dumping ground for loosely connected documents.
Create your PDF Space
Once you’ve added your files, links, or text, select Add to PDF Space. Acrobat will then build the workspace and start pulling the material together into a more useful format.
When the PDF Space opens, you should see an Overview, a list of your source files, AI-generated summaries, and the AI Assistant chat panel.
This is where the space starts to become more than a folder: you can scan the main points, jump between sources, and start asking questions about the material as a whole.
Review the Overview
Before you start asking questions, take a moment to review the Overview Acrobat has created. This gives you a quick sense of what is inside the PDF Space, including the source files, summaries, and suggested insights.
You can also tidy up the workspace at this stage by removing anything irrelevant, renaming the PDF Space, or adding a short description.
A clear, task-based name, such as “Product launch research” or “Travel planning documents”, will make it much easier to find again later.
Ask AI Assistant questions
Once your PDF Space is set up, you can use AI Assistant to explore the material in a more natural way.
Instead of searching through each file manually, ask a question in plain English and Acrobat will use the sources in your workspace to generate an answer.
You might ask it to summarize the key points, compare two documents, pull out dates or costs, or turn the information into a table. The more specific your question, the more useful the answer is likely to be.
A broad prompt such as “summarize this” can still help, but PDF Spaces becomes more valuable when you use it to investigate the material around a particular task or decision.
A good place to get some inspiration can be Adobe's template PDF Spaces, which cover a huge array of topics and include some example AI queries.
Check the citations
AI Assistant can help you move through a large set of documents more quickly, but you should still check the important details before using them elsewhere.
When Acrobat generates an answer, look for the citations attached to its response. These back to the original source material, so you can open the relevant file, section, or page and see where the information came from.
It's a useful safeguard when you are dealing with figures, dates, quotes, technical details, or anything you plan to share with other people.
Think of PDF Spaces as a way to speed up the first pass through your documents, rather than a replacement for checking the source.
The citations are there to make that easier, so use them before copying any AI-generated answer into an email, report, or presentation.
Share the PDF Space
When your PDF Space is ready, select Share to invite other people or create a link. Acrobat lets you choose who can access the space and what they can do with it, so check the sharing settings before sending it on.
You can set permissions such as Viewer, Reviewer, or Contributor, depending on whether you want someone to simply read the space, leave feedback, or help add to it.
If you are using a public link, keep in mind that Contributor access is not available, so you’ll need to invite people directly if you want them to make changes.
FAQs
- Can I use PDF Spaces on mobile? Yes, PDF Spaces works across Acrobat desktop, web, and mobile.
- Can I add more files after creating a PDF Space? Yes, you can add more files, links, and notes later.
- Do PDF Spaces replace normal PDFs? No, they act as workspaces for organising and exploring your files.
