AI lecture notes: turn photos, PDFs and slides into notes

What does AI do in lecture notes?

Note-making tools do two jobs. First they read the source: they turn the writing in a photo or PDF into text and transcribe a recording. Then they organize that text: they put topics under headings, break long explanations into lists and bring out definitions and examples.

What they can’t do is understand the lecture for you. AI can misread messy handwriting, mishear a number in a recording or finish a half-spoken sentence its own way. So the note AI makes is a first draft; you give it its final form.

Which sources can you make notes from?

Board photos and handwriting

Photograph the board before it’s erased, straight on and in sections. The sharper the photo, the more accurate the text that’s read. For details, see the board photos and handwriting guide.

Lecture PDFs and book pages

The PDFs your lecturer shares are often the cleanest source. With scanned pages, that is photos saved as a PDF, the result again depends on how sharp the image is.

Slides

Export the PowerPoint or Keynote presentation as a PDF first, then upload the PDF. Slides are short bullet points, so much of what your lecturer says out loud isn’t on them; you can add it with a recording of the same lecture. Notju processes up to 10 pages in one AI request, so upload a long deck as separate PDFs, one topic at a time.

Lecture recordings

A recording is the richest source for not missing what your lecturer explained. It has to be transcribed first; see the lecture recording to notes guide.

Making lecture notes in Notju, step by step

1. Open a notebook for your course. Each course has its own notebook; your Biology notes don’t mix with your History notes.
2. Upload your source. Choose a photo, a PDF or an audio file. You can select several photos from the same lecture together and put them in order before the note is created.
3. Choose how the note is made. “Transfer as is” keeps the text of the source unchanged. “Organized note” arranges it with headings, lists and tables. “Annotated note” also adds explanations and examples. If you only want the main ideas, choose “Summary” as the length.
4. Read the consent screen. When AI is on, you see which service provider your content goes to before anything is sent. If you choose to only save the sources, no AI request starts.
5. Check the note against its source. You can review and correct the text that was read from the source and create the note again if needed. The original file stays in your course’s Sources.
6. Edit with AI if you like. Simplify the note, shorten it, organize it with headings and lists, fix spelling, add explanations and examples or add study questions. The suggestion arrives as a separate draft that you review before applying.

How is this different from pasting into a chatbot?

You can give a PDF or a photo to a general chatbot like ChatGPT and ask it to turn it into lecture notes. For a one-off summary that may be enough. When you take notes for a whole term, other questions start to matter:

• Where did this note come from? In Notju a note stays in the same course as its source; you go back to the original photo or PDF from there.
• Where do the notes add up? Each new upload becomes a new section of your course notebook; your earlier notes and edits are kept.
• What happens to diagrams? When AI is on, diagrams and charts in photos and PDFs are cropped and placed in the right part of the note.
• Can I study the whole course in one place? In Ju’s book, Ju merges all the notes of a course into one study text, topic by topic, each paragraph linked to the lecture it came from.
• What’s next? You see your notebook’s topics in the study plan and tick them off as you study.

Which one you choose depends on where and how you want to keep your notes.

Four steps to check the result

1. Look at the headings: do the topics follow the same order as the lecture?
2. Compare numbers, dates and formulas with the source one by one.
3. Check names and terms; AI may have confused them with a similar word.
4. If a sentence doesn’t make sense, go back to the source and fix the note in your own words.

Is it free?

You can start Notju for free. Every account with a verified email address has free AI use; keeping sources, writing notes by hand and the study plan don’t count against it. Details are in the questions on the home page.