Uploading contracts

Supported formats, size limits, and uploading via URL.

Updated 2 Jun 2026

Clment accepts most everyday contract formats. This page covers what works, what doesn’t, and the three ways to get a contract into Clment.

Supported formats

  • PDF — including scanned PDFs (OCR runs automatically).
  • Word.docx (modern Word). For older .doc files, open in Word and save as .docx first.
  • Plain text.txt files. Useful for amendments or short side letters.

Not supported: images on their own (.png, .jpg), encrypted / password-protected PDFs, files larger than 50 MB.

If your file is bigger than 50 MB it’s usually because of embedded images. Re-export from Word as PDF with Standard quality or use Acrobat’s Reduce file size.

Two ways to upload

1. Drag and drop

The fastest path. From the Contracts page, drag a file anywhere onto the table — or click + New contract to pick from a file dialog. Clment shows the upload progress, ingests the file, and opens the new contract record.

Contracts are uploaded one at a time. For a back-catalogue migration, the practical workflow is to upload in quick succession from the same browser window — each upload starts processing in parallel so the wall-clock time scales reasonably well even for dozens of files. For very large migrations (hundreds of contracts, or anything coming off a system with an API), contact support — we can run a one-time bulk import for you.

2. Upload from URL (via Claude Desktop)

If you have your AI assistant connected (see Connecting Claude Desktop), you can ask it to ingest a public URL:

“Upload the latest version of the GitLab terms from gitlab.com/terms and start a review.”

Clment AI uses the upload_contract_from_url skill — it downloads the URL, ingests it as a new contract, and (if you asked) starts a review immediately. URLs must be publicly resolvable HTTPS; protected SharePoint / Drive links won’t work without an export token.

What happens after upload

  1. Text extraction — Clment pulls the text layer from the PDF / Word file. Scanned PDFs go through OCR (≈10–20 seconds extra per scanned page).
  2. CLM number — every contract gets a stable identifier like CLM-128, allocated atomically so two simultaneous uploads can never collide.
  3. Initial classification — Clment AI suggests a contract type (NDA, MSA, SoW, etc.) and pulls out the parties, signing date, term, and renewal trigger. You can correct any of these inline.
  4. Indexing — the contract is embedded and added to your portfolio search index so you can ask cross-contract questions like “which of our vendor agreements have unlimited liability?”

If extraction fails (corrupt file, exotic Word features, encrypted PDF), you’ll see a clear error on the contract page with a Re-upload button.

See also

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