Starting from Blank
Not everything needs AI. Sometimes you already know the twenty terms, you have the table in your head, or a colleague sent you a list and you just want it in Scholarly.
Blank starts exist for exactly that. They are free, they use no AI Creation Credits, and they are available on every plan including Free.
Where to Find Them
Open New and look at the Blank group:
| Blank start | What you get |
|---|---|
| Table | A grid you type or paste into, saved as a page |
| Flashcards | A deck you write card by card |
| Quiz | Questions you write, played back in quiz mode |
| An empty white PDF in your library | |
| Folder | An empty folder, named by you |
Each one opens immediately. There is no source to pick, no prompt to write, and nothing to wait for.
Blank Flashcard Deck
Pick New → Blank → Flashcards, or open the flashcard creator and switch to the Blank deck tab.
You get a two-column editor — question on the left, answer on the right:
- Type card by card. Press Tab in the last answer and a new card appears underneath. There is also an Add card row at the end of the deck.
- Import a whole list at once. Press Import from text and paste one card per line. Choose whether your question and answer are separated by a Tab, a comma, or a dash — Scholarly shows how many cards it found before you add them.
- Reorder by dragging a card's handle.
- Swap sides on any card if you typed the answer into the question box.
- Shuffle the whole deck before you create it.
Hover a card to reveal its actions; on a phone they are always visible.
Press Create deck and the deck lands in your library as a normal deck — you can study it, quiz yourself on it, export it to Anki or Quizlet, and later ask the AI to extend it. See Flashcards.
Blank Quiz
Pick New → Blank → Quiz, or open the quiz creator and switch to the Write your own tab.
It is the same editor as the blank deck — write questions and answers, or paste a list — but the button at the bottom says Start quiz. Press it and the quiz opens straight away in quiz mode, with the questions built from the cards you wrote.
This is the fastest path from "here are the twenty things I need to know" to actually being tested on them. See Quizzes and Exams.
Blank Table
Pick New → Blank → Table and the spreadsheet creator opens on its Blank table tab.
- Type directly into the grid.
- Paste straight from Excel or Google Sheets and the block lands in the right cells.
- Add row and Add column as you go, and remove the ones you do not need.
- A table here holds up to 200 rows and 20 columns. Paste more than that and Scholarly tells you what it left out rather than silently trimming.
Press Create table and it arrives as a page with the table already filled in, editable from then on. See AI Spreadsheets.
Blank Page
Pick Page from New (or the Page tab on Home) and an empty page opens immediately — no dialog, no setup.
If you decide partway through that you would rather the AI wrote it, press Draft with AI on the empty page. See Pages.
Blank PDF
Pick New → Blank → PDF and an empty white PDF appears in your library and opens in the PDF workspace.
It does not count against your file-upload allowance, because nothing was uploaded — Scholarly made it. From there you can ask AI Chat to write into it, the same way it edits any other PDF.
Blank Folder
Pick New → Blank → Folder to create an empty folder and name it. If you are already inside a folder when you do this, the new folder is created inside it. See Folders and Organization.
Your Draft Is Saved As You Type
Blank decks, quizzes, and tables save your draft on this device while you work, including when you switch tabs or close the window. Come back and the draft is still there.
Two things follow from "on this device":
- The draft does not sync to your phone or another browser until you actually create the thing.
- It is cleared once you press Create (or Start quiz), or when you press Discard draft.
A banner under the editor tells you the draft is saved and offers Discard draft if you want to start over.
What They Cost
Nothing. Blank starts do not use an AI Creation Credit, and they work on Free.
Once something exists, anything you generate from it later — extending a deck with AI, turning a table into a chart, drafting a page — costs credits as usual. See Plans and Limits.
When to Start Blank Instead of Generating
- You already have the content. A term list, a checklist, a small table — typing it is faster than describing it.
- You want exact wording. Certification answers, legal phrasing, and internal terminology are all cases where you want your words, not a paraphrase.
- You are out of credits for the week. Blank starts keep working.
- You want a container first. A blank page or folder now, filled in later.
Related
- Flashcards — studying, exporting, and refining a deck once it exists.
- Quizzes and Exams — quiz mode, exams, and answer keys.
- AI Spreadsheets — generated workbooks and what you can do with a table.
- Pages — writing, Draft with AI, and the page editor.
- Plans and Limits — what does and does not use a credit.