Getting Started with Scholarly

Scholarly is an AI-powered study platform. It brings together flashcards, notes, AI chat, PDF analysis, podcasts, lecture recordings, video lectures, AI slides, mind maps, study guides, infographics, worksheets, editable library files, research, and quizzes into one place. Everything you upload or create can be analyzed, summarized, and turned into study materials by AI.

Home Page

The home page is your starting point. It includes:

• Continue Studying -- At the very top, flashcard decks with cards due for review are shown so you can jump into spaced repetition immediately.
• Action grid -- Quick action cards for common tasks: Upload a file, Create Flashcards, Record a Lecture, AI Slides, and more. Click any card to jump straight into that workflow.
• Background tasks -- Active and completed generation tasks (video lectures, podcasts, flashcards, research) show their progress here.
• Content table -- A list of everything you have created or uploaded. Sort, search, and filter your content.
• Folders -- Organize your content into folders. Drag and drop items between folders directly from the content table.

Creating Content

Flashcards

Create flashcards from a wide range of sources:

• PDFs, text files, images, websites, YouTube videos, and audio recordings
• Use the flashcard creator on the home page or go through the upload modal
• AI generates question-and-answer pairs from whatever source material you provide
• Or skip the AI: switch to Build Manually in the Create Flashcards window to type cards yourself, no daily limit

Pages and Notes

Pages are a rich text editor for your own notes. Features include:

• AI autocomplete as you type
• Tables, equations, and code blocks
• Full formatting toolbar
• Create flashcards, quizzes, research, and video lectures directly from your notes

PDFs

Upload any PDF (including scanned documents) and interact with it through AI chat. Ask questions about the content, request summaries, edit the document, or extract key points. Switch between the standard scrolling layout and a Slides view with a thumbnail sidebar -- and enter full-screen presentation mode with arrow-key and space-bar shortcuts.

Video Lectures

Generate fully narrated, animated video lectures from your study materials:

• PDFs, text files, images, or a text prompt
• Includes animated scenes, illustrations, charts, and voice narration
• Pick a video mode — Standard, Math, or Kids (see Video Modes)
• Choose a length (Quick Recap, Standard, or Deep Dive) and add custom instructions to steer the lecture
• Pick a quality — 480p, 720p (default), or 1080p Full HD (1080p depends on your plan; see Plans and Limits)
• Pick which AI model generates your video for different styles and voices
• Synced captions on every completed video
• Interactive questions pause the player at key moments to test what you just learned

AI Slides

Generate slide decks from your PDFs:

• Upload up to 3 PDFs
• Add custom instructions to guide the content
• Pick which AI model generates your deck
• Output is a downloadable PDF slide deck that is visually checked for layout issues before delivery

Recordings

Capture lectures and audio content in two ways:

• Record live -- Use the in-browser recorder during a lecture
• Upload audio -- Supports MP3, M4A, WAV, WebM, and OGG files

Recordings are automatically transcribed. Once transcribed, you can chat with the AI about the recording content.

Podcasts

Generate audio podcasts with multi-voice AI hosts from your existing materials:

• PDFs, text files, images, videos, research sessions, or a text prompt
• Choose from style presets: Conversational, Exam Prep, Deep Dive, or Quick Summary
• Includes synced captions so you can read along while you listen

Research

AI-driven research that goes beyond simple search:

• AI explores the web on your behalf
• Asks you clarifying questions to narrow the scope
• Produces cited reports with charts and audio narration

Mind Maps, Study Guides, Infographics, and Worksheets

Turn your material into focused study artifacts, each delivered as a downloadable PDF:

• Mind Maps -- A visual map of the key ideas and how they connect. See Mind Maps.
• Study Guides -- A structured guide you can study from, pulled together from your sources. See Study Guides.
• AI Infographics -- A one-page visual summary of a topic, with a study-guide PDF prepared alongside it. See Infographics.
• Worksheets -- A printable problem set or quiz handout with answer space (and an answer key, if you want one). See Worksheets.

Create any of them from the Home page create tiles. They can be built from your uploaded material, library sources, connected Google Drive files, pasted links, or a typed prompt.

Library Files

Any text or data the AI creates for you — notes, outlines, CSVs, JSON, code, diagrams, calendars — can be saved as a real, editable file in your library. Open the file's own page to preview it, edit it inline, chat with it, or reuse it as a source for any of the AI tools above. See Library Files.

Uploading Content

You can upload files by dragging and dropping them anywhere on the page, or by clicking the Upload button.

Supported file types: PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoints, images, text files, and audio files.

After uploading, you are prompted with follow-up actions:

• Ask AI -- Chat with the uploaded content
• Create Flashcards -- Generate flashcards from the file
• Create Quiz -- Build a quiz based on the material
• Create Podcast -- Turn the content into a multi-voice podcast
• Create Video Lecture -- Generate a narrated video lecture
• Create AI Slides -- Generate a slide deck (PDFs only)

When you choose to create a podcast, video lecture, or slide deck, a customization panel appears so you can configure the output before generating. See the Uploading Content guide for full details.

AI Chat

Click Chat in the sidebar to use AI Chat. Ask questions, get explanations, link your PDFs and notes with @, switch models, retry a reply with a different model, and ask it to build flashcards, podcasts, video lectures, slide decks, or a deep research report — all without leaving the conversation. You can also have a spoken conversation in Voice Mode. See AI Chat and Voice Mode.

Quizzes and Exams

Every flashcard deck comes with a Quiz tab (mixed question types with AI feedback) and an Exam tab (timed, graded tests). For a full-length test without opening a deck, use the Practice Exam action on the home page. See Quizzes and Exams.

Navigation

• Sidebar -- Browse your pages and folders in the left sidebar
• Cmd+K search -- Open the command palette to search across all content types, including recordings and podcasts
• Create menu -- Access all content creation options from the sidebar or top navigation
• Home -- Track background tasks (video lectures, podcasts, flashcards, research) and jump to completed or in-progress items
• Pinning -- Pin any content to the sidebar for quick access
• Command palette -- Press Cmd+K (or Ctrl+K on Windows) to search across PDFs, decks, pages, recordings, podcasts, video lectures, slides, research, and chats. See Command Palette.
• AI Organizer -- One-click way to tidy your library: AI scans your unsorted items and suggests folders. See AI Organizer.
• Background tasks -- Long creations (video lectures, podcasts, slides, research) keep generating after you close the window. See Background Tasks.
• Report Bug -- Click the Report Bug button in the header to report issues directly to the team

Folders

Folders let you group related content together. You can:

• Create folders from the home page or sidebar
• Drag and drop any content item into a folder
• Nest content however you prefer to keep things organized
• Use AI Organizer to let AI analyze your unfoldered content and suggest how to organize it