TextFold

Fold any text, from a one-screen map to every word

_{Formerly PaperFold}

English · 简体中文

Paste a link: any web page · arXiv · PubMed Central · bioRxiv · medRxiv · Wikipedia · GitHub
Drop a file: PDF · Word · PowerPoint · Excel · EPUB · HTML · CSV · pictures · Markdown · text

Try the demo → or install it ↓ · What's new ↓

Read with less in your head

Choose the level of detail you need, and lower your cognitive load.

Also for agent output

Your agent writes more than you have time to read. A Claude Code mod folds every reply the same way, one key per level. More ↓

One fold, three places

• Read. Paste a link or drop a file; it opens as a map of its sections that you zoom into. Get started ↓
• Fold your agent's replies. One key per level in Claude Code, with no second model. In Claude Code ↓
• Plug it into your workflow. python3 -m textfold get hands your agent or script a document one level at a time, and an open format lets any program read and write folded text. For agents ↓

What you get

• Words that travel. As you zoom, every word that stays slides to its new place and the rest fade around it.

• Zoom under your fingers. Stop halfway, turn back, or open one paragraph alone.

• Beside the original. Open a paper's or a PDF's own pages next to the text, each paragraph shown where it stands on its page.

• Ask AI about exactly what you read. Select a passage, or ask about the whole text. The answer comes structured: the short answer first, then the evidence, each point citing the paragraph it rests on, one click away.

• Notes that zoom with the text. Highlight and write in the margin; what you marked stays as you zoom out, and is saved with the page.

• Your language. Twelve languages, translated sentence by sentence, with every formula as typeset.

Highlight and write in the margin…	…and keep what you marked as you zoom out.

Works on your Zotero

Click Zotero library, under the drop zone, and your library is there as Zotero shows it: your collections, your group libraries, a search. Read opens any item.

• An item on arXiv opens from arXiv. Any other opens from its PDF, with the PDF beside the text, or from the EPUB, saved web page or Word file it holds. An item with only a DOI opens from Europe PMC.
• It keeps what you entered in Zotero: the title, the authors and the citekey.
• It stays on your computer. TextFold asks the Zotero app you already run, the way citation plugins do: no account, no key, nothing sent to Zotero's servers, and nothing in your library changed.

To turn it on, in Zotero 7: Settings › Advanced › Allow other applications on this computer to communicate with Zotero.

Get started

python3 -m pip install textfold
python3 -m textfold serve

Open http://localhost:3017. The first time, connect a model; then paste a link or drop a file, and pick a language. You need Python 3.9 or newer (the one macOS ships with works).

What you read is kept in your system's folder for app data, shared with the desktop app.

git clone https://github.com/chenxiachan/textfold.git
cd textfold
python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt
python3 -m textfold serve

Connect a model

TextFold uses a model you already have, and there is no account to create. It looks for one when it starts; if it finds none, the first page offers the ways in.

In the reader

For agents and scripts

python3 -m textfold get gives a document one level at a time, coarsest first, so an agent reads the map before it spends its context on the whole text:

python3 -m textfold get https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.11903        # the map: every section's topic
python3 -m textfold get 2201.11903 --level key --section 3      # one section: its points, each with its reason
python3 -m textfold get report.pdf --json                       # the whole document, in the TextFold format

A document not folded yet is folded first, with the model you connected. Every line a model wrote is marked as such and anchored to the author's sentences it rests on: docs/format.md describes the format, for any program that reads or writes folded text.

Save a page

Save, at the top of the reader, keeps a page as one HTML file that opens anywhere without a server: its levels, the notes you choose and, if you like, its original PDF to read beside it. It can also keep only your notes, as a page, a PDF, Markdown for Obsidian or JSON. From the command line, the page without your notes:

python3 -m textfold export 2201.11903

TextFold is a tool, and its license covers its code. When you share a file, follow the terms of the original text, shown under its title.

In Claude Code

TextFold puts the five levels on every reply in Claude Code. Press 5 for the answer in one sentence, 3 for the point of every paragraph, 1 for every word. Nothing is paraphrased, so at every level you read exactly what Claude said.

claude plugin marketplace add chenxiachan/textfold
claude plugin install textfold@textfold

What's new

• October 14, 2026: your Zotero library. Zotero library, under the drop zone, shows your library and its collections as Zotero does, and opens any item in a click: from arXiv when it is there, else from its own PDF. Thanks to @adalach. Works on your Zotero ↑
• October 14, 2026: arXiv pages, read more safely. What could run script in a page is taken out before the reader draws it, and its figures stay as they were. Thanks to @neil-patel77.
• October 13, 2026: save a page as one file. Save, at the top of the reader, keeps the page as one HTML file, with your notes and its original PDF if you like, or only your notes. Save a page ↓
• October 13, 2026: Word, PowerPoint, Excel, e-books and more. Drop a Word, PowerPoint or Excel file, a CSV, an EPUB or a saved web page, and it opens at once, formulas included, with nothing more to install.

Contributors

Contributions are welcome: start with CONTRIBUTING.md.