Turn a PDF into flashcards, checked against your material
Upload a PDF and QuerySpark writes flashcards from what is actually in it, so you can drill the key terms on exactly what your course covers. PDF files up to 100 MB and 120 pages.
Example
Flashcards from Cell Biology, Chapter 7
A sample of what you get from a PDF on biology. Yours is written from your own file.
Final electron acceptor in aerobic respiration
Oxygen, which combines with protons to form water
Net ATP from glycolysis per glucose
2 ATP (plus 2 NADH)
Chemiosmosis
ATP synthase using the proton gradient across the inner membrane to make ATP
How we read PDFs
We split long PDFs into page batches and read them with Google Document AI, which keeps headings, paragraphs and tables in reading order. Scanned pages are run through OCR automatically, and every item keeps a page reference so you can check the passage it came from.
Get the best results
- Trim to the chapters your exam covers.
- Keep the figure captions. Many good questions come from them.
- If your lecturer posts slides as PDF, upload those too: they show what was emphasized.
What your flashcards include
- Term and definition cards for every key concept
- Concept cards that ask why and how, not only what
- Cards sized to your material: a short reading gets a short deck
- Spaced repetition built in: no deck settings to configure
How you study them
Flip, rate how well you knew it, and move on. Cards you find hard return sooner; cards you know well fade out until just before you would forget them.
Best for: vocabulary and definitions, formulas and dates, daily ten-minute review.
Things that trip people up with PDFs
- Scanned textbooks with skewed pages can drop a few words. OCR handles most of it, but a clean scan gives cleaner questions.
- Two-column journal layouts sometimes interleave columns in cheaper tools. We keep layout order, so questions stay coherent.
- Huge PDFs dilute focus. Upload the chapters on your exam rather than the whole 600-page book.
Questions about pdf to flashcards
Does it work with scanned PDFs?+
Yes. Scanned pages are detected and run through OCR before questions are written. Clean, straight scans give the best results.
How long can the PDF be?+
Up to 100 MB and 120 pages per upload. For a long textbook, upload the chapters your exam covers so every question is relevant.
Can I export to Anki or Quizlet?+
Yes. Export any deck as CSV, which both Anki and Quizlet import.
Is the pdf to flashcards converter free?+
Yes. You can try it free with a 3-day Pro trial and no credit card, then keep using the free plan every month.