Turn Notes or a PDF Into Slides

To turn your notes or a PDF into slides in Scholarly, open New → AI Slides, add the file (PDF, Word, PowerPoint, text, Markdown, or a Google Doc) or paste your notes, pick how many slides you want, and press Generate Slides. Scholarly writes the talk from your source first, then designs each slide around it, using the figures from your PDF along with diagrams, charts, tables, and equations, and writes speaker notes for every slide. The Free plan includes one AI Creation Credit for life, enough for one 10-slide deck. The catch: a free deck is fixed at 10 slides, reads one source and up to 32 PDF pages, and can be viewed, presented, and shared by link but not downloaded. Premium and Laureate decks run from 5 to 30 slides and download as a PDF, a PowerPoint file with your speaker notes, or a Google Slides deck.

What you get

• A designed slide deck planned from your material, with a clear opening, a logical section flow, and a recap at the end.
• Real figures from your PDF where they help, plus diagrams, charts, tables, and equations drawn in the deck's own colours.
• Speaker notes for every slide, written from your source, so you know what to say. They are included in the PowerPoint and Google Slides exports.
• A full-screen presenter view in the browser, on any plan.
• A share link that anyone you send it to can open.
• On a paid plan, downloads: PDF, PowerPoint (.pptx), Word (.docx), Google Slides, and Google Docs.

What you can turn into slides

A recording page does not offer slides directly, so a recording reaches AI Slides as text through one of the two routes above. Photos and other image files are not accepted as an AI Slides source. Save handwritten pages as a PDF instead.

Step by step

1. Open AI Slides

Open New and choose AI Slides. You can also start from a file you already uploaded: open it, and in the Make from this row choose More → Slides. After a fresh upload, Slides is one of the things you can choose to make.

2. Add your source

The Create AI Slides window has four tabs:

• Library: files you have already uploaded, most recent first.
• Upload: drag in a PDF, Word, PowerPoint, or text file.
• Google Drive: pick a file from your Drive. Connect Drive first if you have not. See Connections.
• Prompt AI: describe a topic or add a short brief (up to 5,000 characters) instead of a file, or alongside one.

You can combine sources in one deck: 1 on Free, up to 10 on Premium, up to 20 on Laureate. Press Next.

3. Choose the pages

For a long PDF, use Choose which pages to include to keep only the chapter or section this deck should cover. If you skip it, Scholarly reads from the first page up to your plan's page limit.

4. Pick a starting preset

Under Pick a starting preset:

• Full Deck (default): a complete lecture-style deck with section breaks and clear explanations.
• Exam Prep: focuses on likely testable concepts, comparisons, and summaries.

5. Choose the settings

6. Generate

The Generate Slides button shows what the deck costs in AI Creation Credits before you start. Turn on Email me when it's ready if you want a message when it finishes, or use Schedule to start it later. Generation runs in the background, so you can close the window and keep working. If a creation fails, its credit is returned automatically. See When a Creation Fails.

7. Review, present, and refine

The deck opens as a page of its own. Before you present it:

1. Read every slide against your source, especially charts, equations, numbers, and dense material.
2. Press Present (the play button) for full screen. Move with the arrow keys, Page Up and Page Down, or Space, and press Esc to exit.
3. Use Refine under the deck to ask for a change in your own words, for example "make slide 6 shorter" or "add a comparison of the two methods." Refine sends your request to AI Chat, which can revise the deck.
4. For a different deck, generate again. Change the pages, the preset, the slide count, or the instructions. Your original deck stays as it is.

8. Download or share

• Share gives you a link on every plan, Free included.
• On a paid plan, Download on a computer offers Download PDF, PowerPoint (.pptx), Word (.docx), and Print. Connect Google Drive and the same menu adds Save to Google Slides and Save to Google Docs.
• On a phone, the ⋯ menu has Download (the PDF) and Print. Use a computer for PowerPoint, Word, and Google exports.

Each export is a separate copy. Editing it does not change the deck in Scholarly. See Exporting Your Work.

9. Turn it into a narrated video

Under the deck, Make next → Video opens the video lecture creator with the same sources the deck was made from. Scholarly writes a narrated, animated lecture with captions and chapters from that material. A Standard video lecture also comes with its own slide deck. The video is a new creation built from your sources, not a voice-over of the deck you already have, and it uses its own AI Creation Credit. See Turn a PDF Into a Narrated Video Lecture.

Plan limits

What one deck costs. Only the model's credits. The number of slides adds nothing. On Auto (GPT 6 Luna) a deck costs 1 credit, and most other models also cost 1. Kimi K3 and Claude Sonnet 5.5 cost 2, and GPT 6.1 Sol, GPT 6 Astra, and Claude Opus 5.5 cost 3. The model picker shows a model's cost before you create.

Weekly credits reset every Monday at 00:00 UTC and are shared with every other AI creation, such as video lectures, podcasts, and flashcards. On Free, the one lifetime credit covers one creation in total, so a free deck and a free video lecture are an either-or. If you run out mid-week on a paid plan, you can buy an AI Credit Pack. See Plans and Limits.

Languages

Slides and speaker notes follow the language you pick in Language, from over 70 options including Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Arabic, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, or Auto to match your source. Your notes and your deck do not have to share a language: English lecture notes can become a Spanish deck. Arabic, Hebrew, and other right-to-left decks are laid out right to left, and their speaker notes read right to left in PowerPoint. See Languages in Scholarly.

Tips for a good result

• Give it one topic per deck. A whole semester of notes makes a thin deck. One chapter, one lecture, or one case makes a sharp one. Use the page selector to narrow a long PDF.
• Clean up messy notes first. Headings and a rough order help the deck follow your structure. Fragments and shorthand get interpreted, so check those slides.
• Prefer a text PDF or the original Word file. A scan works, but accuracy follows the scan quality.
• Match the slide count to the time you have. About one slide a minute is a fair starting point: 10 slides for a short class talk, 20 to 30 for a full lecture or a client presentation.
• Use Exam Prep for revision, Full Deck to teach or present.
• Say who it is for in Custom instructions: "first-year nursing students", "board exam review", "a 10-minute pitch to the finance team".
• Read the speaker notes before you present. They are written from your source and work as a script, but they are a draft.

What it does not do

• No slide-by-slide editor in Scholarly. There is no drag-and-drop canvas. Change the deck with Refine or generate it again, or edit an exported copy in PowerPoint or Google Slides.
• Exported slides are pictures of the design. In the PowerPoint and Google Slides files, each designed slide is normally placed as a full-slide image so it looks exactly as it did in Scholarly. The words on a slide are not editable text boxes there. The speaker notes are editable text. For the slide text as an editable document, use Word (.docx).
• No slide master or template file. You cannot upload a .potx or a company template. Steer the design with Look, Dark mode, and a Customization Profile.
• No animations or transitions in the exported file.
• No downloads on Free. Free decks are viewed, presented, and shared by link.
• No direct slides from a recording page. Bring the transcript in as text first.
• No image files as sources. Save photos of notes as a PDF.
• No narration on the deck itself. For a narrated version, make a video lecture from the same sources (step 9). There is no avatar or on-screen presenter in that video either.
• Not a substitute for review. The deck is built from your material, but check figures, numbers, and claims before you present.

Facts at a glance

• Inputs: PDF, Word, PowerPoint, text, Markdown, Google Drive files, a web page or PDF link, pasted notes up to 100,000 characters, or a topic prompt.
• Output: a designed slide deck with speaker notes, a full-screen presenter view, and a share link.
• Slides per deck: 10 on Free; 5 to 30 on paid plans, 15 by default.
• Sources per deck: 1 on Free, 10 on Premium, 20 on Laureate.
• Downloads (paid plans): PDF, PowerPoint (.pptx) with speaker notes, Word (.docx), Google Slides, Google Docs.
• Languages: over 70, with right-to-left layout for Arabic and Hebrew.
• Cost: 1 AI Creation Credit on Auto, whatever the slide count.
• Next step: Make next → Video for a narrated video lecture from the same sources.
• Not included: slide-by-slide editor, template upload, animations, avatars.

Frequently asked questions

Can I turn my handwritten notes into slides?

Yes, if they are a PDF. Scan or photograph the pages into one PDF and upload it. Image files on their own are not accepted by AI Slides, and accuracy depends on how legible the scan is.

Can I make slides from a lecture recording?

Yes, through text. Copy the recording's transcript into Paste text, or run the audio through Transcribe for a .txt file (Transcribe uses 1 AI Creation Credit), then pick it in AI Slides. To record the lecture in the first place, see Record a Lecture and Turn It Into Notes.

How many slides will I get?

10 on Free. On Premium and Laureate you pick 5 to 30, and the default is 15.

Can I download it as PowerPoint?

Yes, on a paid plan: Download → PowerPoint (.pptx), with your speaker notes on the notes pages. Save to Google Slides does the same into your Drive.

Can I edit the slides in PowerPoint?

You can rearrange, delete, and add slides, and edit the speaker notes. Each Scholarly slide arrives as a full-slide image, so to change the wording on a slide, use Refine in Scholarly and export again, or retype it in PowerPoint.

Will the slides include things that are not in my notes?

The deck is planned from the sources you selected. With only a topic on Prompt AI, Scholarly writes from the topic instead. Review the slides either way.

Can I turn the deck into a video with a voice-over?

Use Make next → Video under the deck. It makes a narrated video lecture from the same sources, with captions and chapters. It is a new creation, not a recording of your existing slides.

Do Free users get speaker notes?

Speaker notes are written for every deck, but they reach you in the PowerPoint and Google Slides exports, which need a paid plan.

Related

• AI Slides: the feature in full.
• Turn a PDF Into a Narrated Video Lecture: the narrated version of your material.
• Turn a PDF or Notes Into a Study Podcast: the listening version.
• Record a Lecture and Turn It Into Notes: capture the lecture first.
• Paste Text: bring in notes from any app.
• Exporting Your Work: PowerPoint, Word, and Google exports.
• Customization Profiles: reuse your instructions across decks.
• AI Slide Generator: what AI Slides makes, with examples.