Is NotebookLM now called Gemini Notebook?

Yes. Google renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook on July 16, 2026. Old notebooklm.google.com links redirect to notebook.google.com, and shared notebooks keep working.

Can NotebookLM keep the layout of my PDF?

Google's help pages describe no feature that returns a translated copy of your PDF in its original layout. Gemini Notebook gives you chat answers, study guides, reports and other new content about the file. For a translated file with the layout kept, use a document translator such as Google Translate's document mode or DeepL.

Can it translate a scanned PDF?

Google's help pages do not say whether text inside scanned PDF pages is read. Image files are accepted as sources, with a note that some images may not work as well. Check the answers against the page before you rely on them.

Is Gemini Notebook free?

There is a free Standard plan with up to 100 notebooks and 50 sources per notebook. Usage limits refresh every five hours and depend on how heavily you use it. Paid Google AI plans raise the limits.

All guides

Can NotebookLM translate a PDF? What Gemini Notebook does

Can NotebookLM translate a PDF? It answers in your language, but returns no translated file. Limits, the output language setting and better options.

Updated October 20, 2026

Can NotebookLM translate a PDF? Not in the sense most students mean. Gemini Notebook, the new name of NotebookLM since July 2026, reads your PDF and answers questions, writes summaries and makes study guides in the language you choose, but Google documents no feature that hands back a translated PDF with the original layout. If you need the handout itself in another language, a document translator does that job; Gemini Notebook is better for questions about the content.

Can NotebookLM translate a PDF? The short answer

What it does: you upload a PDF as a source. You can chat with it and get answers with citations to the source, or turn it into study guides, briefings, Audio Overviews, Video Overviews, flashcards, quizzes, mind maps and reports (Google help).
In which language: whatever you set as the output language. Google lists more than 80 languages, including Vietnamese and Chinese (Traditional) (output language help).
What it does not do: return the same PDF, page for page, in another language. We found no such feature on Google's help pages on 2026-10-20.

Is NotebookLM now Gemini Notebook?

Yes. On July 16, 2026 Google wrote: "We're renaming NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook", and called it the same standalone product (Google blog). The old address notebooklm.google.com now redirects to notebook.google.com, and the help centre moved to a new address too. Most people still search for NotebookLM, so this page uses both names.

What does it do with a PDF?

A PDF is one of the supported source types, next to Word, PowerPoint, text, Markdown, CSV, Google Docs and Slides, images, audio, web pages and YouTube videos with captions (source types). Each source can hold up to 500,000 words or 200 MB.

Once the PDF is in a notebook, you can:

Ask questions and get answers that cite the passage they come from.
Generate a study guide, a briefing or a report from one or more sources.
Make flashcards or a quiz from the material.
Listen to an Audio Overview, a spoken summary in the style of a short discussion.

You can also ask the chat to put a paragraph into your language. What comes back is a chat answer, written fresh by the model. It is not a copy of the page, so formulas, tables and figures are not kept in place.

How do you set the output language?

On the desktop site, open Settings at the top right, then Output Language, and pick a language. Google says the setting applies to "study guides, documentation, Audio Overviews, Video Overviews, and chat responses", and adds that "different features may support different languages" (Google help). The default follows your Google Account language.

A practical setup for a Chinese handout read in Vietnamese, or an English handout read in Chinese: keep the source as it is, set the output language to your own language, and ask for the key terms with the original wording next to the translation. The original wording matters because the exam uses it.

What it will not give you

A translated handout with the same layout. You get new text about the handout.
Term consistency across a course. Each answer is generated on its own. A term can be translated one way today and another way next week, unless you keep your own list.
Regional wording you can trust. For Chinese, many models lean toward mainland vocabulary. Our data page on Taiwan vs mainland Chinese technical terms found that 51.4% of 6,126 official term pairs use different words on each side.

How does it compare with ChatGPT, Gemini, Google Translate and DeepL?

Tool	What you get back	Official limits (checked 2026-10-20)
Gemini Notebook (free Standard)	Chat answers with citations, study guides, overviews, flashcards	100 notebooks, 50 sources per notebook, 500,000 words or 200 MB per source; usage refreshes every 5 hours
ChatGPT	A chat answer	512 MB per file, 2 million tokens per text file; free users 3 uploads per day
Gemini app	A chat answer	Up to 10 files per prompt, 100 MB per file (video up to 2 GB)
Google Translate, documents	A translated file to download	.docx, .pdf, .pptx, .xlsx up to 10 MB; PDFs up to 300 pages; desktop only
DeepL, free	A translated file	1 file per month, up to 5 MB

Sources: Gemini Notebook plans, new usage limits, ChatGPT file uploads FAQ, Gemini app uploads, Google Translate documents, DeepL plans. Limits change often, so check the links before you plan around them.

Two details matter for lecture handouts:

Scanned pages. Google Translate says text in images and scanned PDF pages is not translated. ChatGPT's FAQ says that outside Enterprise it extracts the digital text of a file rather than its embedded images. DeepL says it translates both scanned and digitally created PDFs (DeepL).
Phones. Google says document translation is not available on smaller screens or mobile.

If you study at a university in Taiwan, Google's 2026 back-to-school offer gives eligible students one year of Google AI Plus, which raises Gemini Notebook's limits. It can be redeemed until December 31, 2026 (Google Taiwan blog).

When should you use a document translator instead?

Use a document translator when you want to read the handout itself: every page, in order, with figures and formulas where they were. Use Gemini Notebook when you already have the handout and want to ask about it, review it or turn it into practice questions.

Many students end up using both. They read the original with a translation next to it, then use an AI notebook to quiz themselves before the exam.

BanDoc does the reading part for course handouts. It lays the translation over the original page, keeps the original one tap away, and builds one term list per course that you review on a schedule. You can try it with one handout or see the plans.

Reading lecture slides in another language

Whatever tool you use, the habits that help are the same: skim the headings and bold terms in the original first, translate only what blocks you, and keep the exam wording of every term. Our guide on studying in a foreign language walks through that method step by step.