Turn a PDF into an Interactive Micro-App with Claude or ChatGPT (Step by Step)

You have a workbook, a checklist or a set of journal pages as a PDF. People download it, print it or ignore it. An interactive version lets them type, tick, see their progress and download their answers. This guide takes you from the PDF to a page you can put online. Allow about an hour for your first one, most of it spent in the conversation with your AI.

Before you start

• You need a PDF or notes that you wrote, or that you own the rights to. This includes a document an AI wrote for you. Do not convert someone else's work.
• You need an account with Claude or ChatGPT. This guide does not need a paid plan, but your provider sets its own limits on file size and chat length.
• Check the PDF has text you can select with your mouse. If every page is a picture, your AI may read it badly. A good one will say so.
• Remove anything private first: client names, personal details, keys.

Step 1: Answer the questions

Open the PDF to Micro-App tool. Fill in what the document is, who it is for and anything that must never change, such as a disclaimer. Then make four choices:

1. The look. Choose one of four templates. Minimal steps shows one section at a time. Minimal page shows everything on one page. Idea builder uses soft purple panels on one page. Project planner shows one step at a time in a calm grey and purple look. Add your own brand palette and fonts if you have them.
2. How faithful to be. Exact keeps your words. Adapted reshapes the material to fit a method you name. Rewrite lets your AI reword it, except for what you list as off limits. If you are not sure, choose Exact.
3. Where it will live. A free web host is the easiest start. Choose Djangify if it is for a Djangify site.
4. What happens at the end. The words on the last screen, and an optional button that sends people to your page, your site or your sign-up.

Press Make my instructions.

Step 2: Give the instructions to your AI

1. Start a new chat in Claude or ChatGPT.
2. Attach your PDF with the attach button.
3. Paste the instructions from the tool and send them.

Your AI will not build anything yet. It first reads the document and sends you a numbered list of sections, each marked Keep or Leave out with a reason. These are suggestions. Reply with what must be in the micro-app and what can go, and add any changes in your own words.

Step 3: Check the plan

Next your AI describes how each section will work, such as a writing box, fill-in lines, a tick list, choices, a scale or a table. It also lists anything odd it found: repeated sections, typos, a formula with no explanation. Read this carefully. This is where you catch a wrong guess cheaply. Answer its questions, then say yes.

Step 4: Get the content and build the page

Your AI sends the content in one code block, followed by a short report of what it kept, changed, left out and could not resolve. Copy the code block, go back to the tool, paste it into step 3 and press Build my page.

If the tool shows an error, copy the message to your AI and ask it to fix the content. Then build again.

When the page is built, press Download my micro-app straight away.

What the site saves and what it does not

The tool page can keep some of your work for you, so you can leave and carry on later. It helps to know exactly what is kept.

What is saved

• Your answers to the questions in step 1. The document name, who it is for, your choices and your wording.
• The instructions the tool made for your AI.
• The content you pasted back from your AI, kept as progress so you can build again.

When you are signed in, you will see a green "Progress saved" bar at the top of the tool. That bar means your progress is kept and will be there when you come back, on any device. The "Save to my dashboard" button under the tool keeps a copy of your answers and instructions that you can find again in your dashboard.

What is not saved

• The finished micro-app. The page that the tool builds from your content is not stored on the site or in your dashboard. Download it.
• Your PDF. It is never sent to this site. It goes only to the AI you choose.
• Anything you do not see "Progress saved" for. If the bar does not appear, your answers are not kept, and refreshing the page clears them.

If you want to start again, the Clear and restart button at the bottom left of the tool empties every box and resets your choices.

Step 5: Test it properly

Use the preview, then open the file you downloaded on your computer.

• Type in every box, reload the page and check your answers are still there.
• Use the download button on the last screen and open the file.
• Print the page or save it as a PDF.
• Open it on your phone.
• Paste the text from your original PDF into step 4 of the tool and read every sentence it says it cannot find. Each one is either something your AI left out, something you approved changing, or wording that only differs in punctuation.

Step 6: Put it online

The file you downloaded is a single HTML file, so it works on any free host. The guide How to Publish an AI-Built Micro-App for Free walks through four of them.

If you want to sell it, Djangify lets you publish a micro-app as a free or paid Hosted Tool on your own site. Choose the Djangify option in step 1 and the tool builds the file for it. On a Djangify site, visitors can save their answers to a dashboard.

Troubleshooting

My AI started building before asking what to keep

Say: "Stop. Follow the steps in the instructions. Give me the keep or leave-out list first."

The chat got too long and my AI forgot the format

Start a new chat, attach the PDF again and paste the instructions plus your keep list.

The tool says an id is used twice or a block type is unknown

Copy the exact message to your AI and ask for corrected content.

My PDF is scanned

Ask your AI to tell you which pages it could not read, then type those pages up yourself or leave them out.

The result has wording I did not write

Run the check in step 4 of the tool, then ask your AI to put the original wording back, quoting the sentence from your PDF.

Some pages are missing

The check will show it. Ask your AI to add those sections and send the whole content again. Most of the times the things missing are not important. AI is good at getting rid of things like the content page and as it has already asked you to confirm what you want there shouldn't be any surprises. Still this is helpful just to make sure.

I came back and my finished micro-app is gone

The site does not keep the built page. Paste your content into step 3 again and press Build my page, then download it this time. If your pasted content is not there either, ask your AI to send it again.

What to remember

• Your AI reads the document. The tool prepares the questions and builds the page.
• You decide what is kept. Your AI suggests.
• Download your finished micro-app as soon as it is built. The site saves your answers and instructions, not the finished page.
• Check the page against your document before you publish it.