summarize-document · gemini-1-5-pro · writing · 90% confidence

Summarize a document with Gemini 1.5 Pro — optimized prompt

A Gemini 1.5 Pro summarization prompt for long sources: paste the whole document, get a fixed sectioned template (TL;DR, decisions, open questions, figures quoted verbatim) with a length cap.

90% confidenceUpdated 9/7/2026summarize-document · gemini-1-5-pro · writing

Original prompt

Summarize this for me Gemini: [PASTE DOCUMENT]

Optimized prompt

Summarize the document below. It may be long — paste the whole thing; do not ask me to trim it. Use the full text.

=== READER ===
[role + the decision or task this feeds]

=== DOCUMENT ===
[PASTE FULL DOCUMENT]

Produce exactly this template:

## TL;DR
2–3 sentences.

## Decisions / conclusions
Bullets.

## Open questions or gaps
Bullets, or "none stated".

## Figures
Any numbers, dates, or amounts — quoted verbatim from the text, each with its context. Do not paraphrase numbers.

Hard cap the whole thing at [e.g. 250] words. No adjective padding, no "in conclusion".

Why this Gemini 1.5 Pro prompt works

Tuned for Gemini 1.5 Pro: paste the whole document however long, get a fixed template — TL;DR, decisions, open questions, and figures quoted verbatim. The long context handles the full text; the verbatim-numbers rule stops the paraphrase drift that garbles amounts and dates.

What to check in the output

The optimized prompt consistently produces summaries that are within the specified sentence length range for typical documents.
The optimized prompt's summaries are more likely to contain actionable insights when present in the document compared to the naive prompt.
The optimized prompt's summaries are less likely to include conversational filler or introduce external information.