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Studying From Your Own Notes

Upload your own PDFs, images or text files and Learning Clarity reads them, pulls out the sub-topics, and builds a roadmap you can study, test yourself on, sit an exam on, or turn into a podcast. This page covers exactly what you can upload, what it costs, and what to do when a file will not go through.

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The material you were given is the material you will be examined on. Studying a general summary of the subject is not the same as studying the chapter your lecturer actually set.

What You Can Upload

Open Create Topic and choose Upload Resources. You can select several files at once, and they are read together as a single body of material.

  • PDF — up to 40 MB per file.
  • Images (PNG, JPG, JPEG) — up to 10 MB each, and at most 7 images in one upload.
  • Plain text (.txt) — up to 5 MB per file.
  • Everything together — up to 50 MB in a single upload.

What You Cannot Upload

Word documents and PowerPoint slide decks cannot be uploaded directly. Save or export them as PDF first — every word processor and presentation tool offers this from its File menu — and the PDF uploads normally.

What It Costs, and the One Thing to Know First

Building a topic from uploaded material needs a balance of at least 1,000 credits before it will start. Signing up gives you 500 free credits, so the upload route is not available on the starter balance on its own.

Describing a topic in your own words needs only 50 credits. If you are still on your free credits, start there — you can upload material into a new topic once you have topped up.

When a File Will Not Go Through

  • A scanned or photographed page — a PDF that is really a picture of a page has no text layer to read. If you cannot select the text in a PDF reader, neither can we. Export a version that contains real text, or upload the original document the scan was made from.
  • A password-protected PDF — remove the protection and upload it again.
  • Too large — split a long document into parts and build a topic from each. Smaller topics also produce sharper sub-topics.
  • Too many photos — more than 7 images in one upload is refused. Send them in batches.

What Happens After the Upload

Your material is read and broken into sub-topics, and from then on it behaves like any other topic — Explain Mode walks you through it, Quiz Mode and Exam Mode test you on it, and it can be read aloud, turned into a podcast episode, or talked through out loud.

How This Differs From Asking a General AI Chat

A general assistant will happily summarise a document you paste in, and for a quick answer that is often enough. The difference is what survives the conversation: here your material becomes a roadmap that remembers where you stopped, timed exams with a mastery report, and an examination history you can look back on. The material stays the source; the studying is what gets built on top of it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What file types can I upload?
PDF, PNG, JPG, JPEG and plain text (.txt). Word documents and PowerPoint decks are not accepted directly — export them to PDF first and they upload normally.
Is there a size limit?
Yes. 40 MB for a PDF, 10 MB for each image, 5 MB for a text file, and 50 MB for everything in one upload combined. At most 7 images can be sent in a single upload.
Why did my PDF fail — it is a scan of my textbook?
A scanned PDF is a picture of a page rather than text, so there is nothing to read. Check whether you can select the text in a PDF reader. If you cannot, export a version that contains real text, or upload the original file the scan was made from.
Can I upload material using my free starter credits?
Not on the free balance alone. Building a topic from uploaded files needs at least 1,000 credits and signing up gives you 500. Describing a topic in your own words needs only 50, so start there and upload material once you have topped up.
Does it make flashcards, or can I export to Anki?
There are no flashcards and no Anki export. The same job is done by Quiz Mode and by the knowledge checks inside Explain Mode, which are generated from your own material and graded for you, so there is no deck to build or maintain.
Can I upload notes in one language and study in another?
Yes. The language your material is written in and the language you are taught in are set separately, so you can upload English slides and have the explanations, quizzes and exams in your own language.
Can I upload a recording of a lecture?
No. Audio and video files cannot be uploaded — the accepted formats are PDF, PNG, JPG, JPEG and plain text. If you have a recording, upload the slides or your written notes from that lecture instead, or describe the topic in your own words.