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NEW — Practicl now reads application notes and firmware release notes every answer cited to the page built for photonics, semiconductor and precision instruments
Product / How it works

How technical documentation AI turns a PDF into cited answers

This is how Practicl works, in four stages: ingest, understand, answer, configure. Semantic ingestion reads every page of your datasheets and manuals, spec extraction keeps each value with its condition, and every answer cites the exact page. No rewriting your documentation, no second knowledge base to maintain.

01 / Ingest

Semantic ingestion of the PDF you already publish

Datasheets, manuals, application notes, firmware release notes — the exact files on your downloads page today. An LLM reads the whole document, then chunks it by meaning: spec tables, tolerance columns, derating curves, footnotes and revision histories, all kept intact.

Not a fixed-size text splitter. A 41-table datasheet stays 41 tables — tables, procedures and safety warnings are never split, and each cell keeps its row header, column unit, and test condition.

ingestion logSL-940_datasheet_rev2.4.pdf
  • 312 pages parsed
  • 41 spec tables reconstructed with units
  • 96 footnotes attached to their values
  • 12 derating curves extracted as data
  • revision 2.4 diffed against 2.3 — 14 changes
  • → every fact keeps its address: document · revision · page
02 / Understand

The condition travels with the number

A spec without its test condition is a different — and wrong — spec. Generic RAG for datasheets flattens tables into prose and loses exactly this. Practicl resolves cross-references and preserves the relationships that make a spec valid, keeping exact values untouched: units, tolerances, scientific notation, Greek symbols. It never rounds.

Naive text split

✕ loses the condition

wavelength stability 0.1 nm 0.4 nm 30 min 40 C 0.02 typ max note 7 see table 12 …

The numbers survive; their meaning doesn’t. Ask “what stability at 35 °C?” and this happily quotes ±0.1 nm — without the warm-up, without the derating.

Practicl’s read

✓ condition preserved
parametervaluecondition
wavelength stability±0.1 nmafter 30-min warm-up
derating >40 °C0.02 nm/°Cnote 7 · p.34

Value, unit, condition, and footnote stay bound together — so the answer carries the caveat, every time.

03 / Answer

Cited to the page. Or declined.

Every answer is grounded in the source and links to the exact page — the citation chip opens the PDF where the fact lives. A validation pass checks the answer against the cited text before it ships.

If the documents don’t cover it, Practicl says so and routes the question to your team. No extrapolation, no plausible-sounding guesses.

SL-940_datasheet_rev2.4.pdf
Question

What wavelength stability can I expect in a 25–⁠40 °C lab?

Answer

±0.1 nm — after a 30-minute warm-up. Above 40 °C ambient, derate by 0.02 nm/°C.

↳ SL-940 datasheet · p.34validated against source · won’t guess
04 / Configureon the roadmap

One document, many links

The plan is for each link to be its own configuration of the same ingested source: a persona for the audience, and a set of tools switched on per link.

Search is live today. The tools marked below are what we’re building — they are not in the product yet.

/sl-940/evaluatepublic

Pre-sales persona

Answers spec and comparison questions for evaluating engineers. Captures a lead when the questions get serious.

  • search
  • lead capture*
  • summary email*
/sl-940/integratecustomer

Integration persona

Assumes the reader is wiring the instrument in. Can emit code snippets for the command set and interface examples.

  • search
  • code snippets*
  • raise a ticket*
/sl-940/servicefield

Service persona

Error codes, calibration intervals, firmware diffs. Escalates to a ticket with the full question thread attached.

  • search
  • raise a ticket*
  • summary email*

* on the roadmap — not in the product yet
which tools come with which plan is still being set — see pricing

Where it lives

Three ways to put it in front of people

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On your website

A widget on your own site, answering from the pages you’ve published. Documents stay in the app and on share links.

https://…/sl-940

As a shareable link

A sales engineer sends it after a call, scoped to the manuals that matter; a QR code on the crate points to it. No login for the customer.

workspace

Inside your team

The same engine pointed inward — every product’s documentation, askable by your own engineers and sales team.

The demo is your own product

See it on your own datasheet

Send a link to one public PDF. We ingest it, and you ask it anything — about your own laser, your own spectrometer, your own error codes.

Request the demo→

one public PDF · no integration · answers in days