Studying with handwritten notes
Make flashcards from your handwritten notes
Updated
Writing by hand is a good way to learn. Turning those pages into flashcards is the tedious part. With Margen, the pages you write on your Boox are transcribed in the background, and you can ask Claude to make the flashcards for you, from your own notes.
"I was actually making notes on Linux and using them to make flash cards for studying and memorizing various commands! I was originally trying out Boox built in tools but didn't find them robust enough! With Margen I was able to transcribe my notes and then Claude also made me a set of flash cards from those notes!"
Marc, Margen early-access user
How it works
- Write your notes in Margen on the Boox, the way you would on paper: definitions, commands, formulas, arrows, lists.
- Close the note. The page is transcribed in the background by a vision model, with a short title and a one-line summary.
- Ask Claude (or ChatGPT) for flashcards. Claude searches your notes, reads the pages and writes the cards. When a word is unclear, it can open the page image to check what you actually wrote.
You connect Claude once, on any plan: see Ask Claude about your Boox notes.
Prompts to copy
- "Find my notes about Linux commands and make 20 flashcards: the question on the front, the command and what it does on the back."
- "Read everything I wrote this week about chapter 4 and make flashcards for the definitions only."
- "Turn my notes on the French Revolution into flashcards. Use dates and names as answers, and skip anything I crossed out."
- "Quiz me on my notes from yesterday, one question at a time, and tell me what I got wrong."
- "Which of my flashcards come from a word you weren't sure you read correctly? Show me those first."
Into Anki or another flashcard app
Anki and most flashcard apps import a plain text file with one card per line. Ask:
- "Give me these flashcards as tab-separated text, front then back, no header, so I can import them into Anki."
Copy the result into a .txt file and import it (in Anki: File → Import). For Quizlet, ask for the same format and paste it into Quizlet's import box.
Why this works better from handwriting
The cards come from what you wrote, in your words and your order, not from a generic summary of the topic. And since the transcription keeps the page image next to the text, a misread command or formula can be checked against the page instead of being learned wrong.
Questions
Can Claude make flashcards from handwritten notes?
Yes, once your notes are text it can. Margen transcribes each page you write on your Boox and lets Claude search and read them, so you can ask for flashcards from specific notes.
Can I import the flashcards into Anki?
Yes. Ask Claude for tab-separated text (front, then back, one card per line), save it as a .txt file and import it in Anki with File → Import.
What if the handwriting is misread?
Claude can open the page image to check a word, and you can ask it to flag the cards that come from words it wasn't sure about.
Does it work with notes I wrote in Boox Notes?
Yes. Import them in Margen (Settings → Boox Notes): their pages are transcribed like the ones you write in Margen, and Claude can make flashcards from them. Each page with writing counts as one new note.