User guide Lectures and slides

Lectures and slides

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Open any PDF in a module to read it, write on it, and keep the board photos and voice notes from that lecture in order.

A Bernoulli lecture and handwritten continuity checks in the real PolyNotes Canvas view. — Bernoulli lecture slides with handwritten checks in the writable Canvas margin.

Page view and Canvas view

A switch at the top of a lecture changes between the two.

	Page view	Canvas view
Layout	One page after another, for reading	Every slide on one wide sheet, with margins to write in
Writing	On each page	Anywhere, margins included
Tools	Mouse, pen, highlighter, eraser, undo, redo and clear page	Almost every tool, including the lasso, text, tables and the ruler
Scratchpad	Yes	No
Board photos and voice notes	No	Yes
Length	Any	Up to 99 pages

A PDF over 99 pages opens in Page view, with the message “This PDF is too long for Canvas view — opening it in Page view instead.”

Zoom and move around

Zoom from 40% to 300% with the zoom buttons, a pinch, Ctrl/⌘ with + or −, or Ctrl/⌘ with the scroll wheel.
Tap the zoom number to go back to 100%. In Canvas view it can also fit the slide to the window.
Maximize Slide gives the slide the whole window. Restore Layout brings everything back.
Tap the title at the top to switch to another material in the module.
The … menu holds what doesn't fit on the bar: Screenshot to Canvas, Flashcards & Summary, Open Another Slide Beside and Maximize Slide.

The toolbar fits its window. As space runs out, tools fold into a More tools menu, while undo and redo stay on the bar. See Pen and tools.

Open two or three decks side by side

The real PolyNotes split view with a tutorial on the left and a lecture on the right. — A tutorial and a lecture open in the app’s real split view.

Open the … menu and choose Open Another Slide Beside.
Pick a PDF from the module. It opens on the left, with your main lecture on the right.
Do it again for a third. The left side splits into top and bottom.

Drag a divider to resize, anywhere from 15% to 85%.
Each extra window has its own title, Change this window, Back to what it showed before, and Close.
In split view, the Materials button opens the materials list in a floating box.

Screenshot to Canvas

Copy what you can see, ink and pictures included, onto your main lecture as a picture. Use Screenshot to Canvas in the … menu, or Screenshot → main canvas on a split window. The picture can be moved, resized, cropped and written on like any other. It's a quick way to put a worked example from the tutorial sheet next to the lecture slide.

Board photos between slides

A photo of the whiteboard can go between two slides as its own card, so the deck follows the lecture in order.

The real four-corner photo crop editor with a fictional whiteboard photo; its fixed-dark controls remain native. — The app’s native four-corner crop editor. The fixed-dark editor is retained within the light-theme session.

In Canvas view, tap the camera button at the bottom corner of the slide the photo should follow. Its label is Add a photo under this slide.
Pick one of the module's photos New in 1.1, or tap Choose from Your Files for one that isn't in the module.
PolyNotes finds the board's four corners. Drag any corner to the board's real edge.
Tap Crop to straighten it into a flat rectangle. Use as-is keeps the whole photo, and Reset to full frame starts again.

You can write on a board photo and put pictures on it, like a slide.
Your notes further down the deck move with it, so nothing ends up in the wrong place.
To remove one, pick the Mouse tool, tap the photo, and remove it.
Photos are made smaller before they're stored, so they don't fill your device.

Add a photo from the module New in 1.1

Photos taken on your phone during class wait in the module's gallery. When you pick one, PolyNotes asks where it goes:

Add Here puts it between slides, as a board photo. A slider picks which slide it follows.
Place on the Slide drops it on the slide as a picture you can move, resize and crop.

You can also tap a photo in the module's gallery to add it to the lecture that's open.

The Add this photo sheet showing a whiteboard photo, a slider set to Between slides 9 and 10, an Add Here button and a Place on the Slide button — Put a photo between slides, or on the slide.

Voice notes on a slide

A slide in Canvas view with a small voice note tab on its left edge showing Play and Transcribe buttons, and a transcript below — A voice note hangs off the slide it belongs to.

In Canvas view, tap Record a voice note for this slide on the toolbar.
Talk, then stop. The microphone switches off as soon as you stop.
The recording appears as a small tab on the left edge of that slide, with Play/Pause and, on Windows, Transcribe.

You can delete a voice note, or hide its transcript. A transcript joins the module's AI search, so the tutor can answer from what was said. See Transcribe voice notes.

The scratchpad (Page view)

Pull the scratchpad up from the bottom with its toolbar button. Each lecture has its own.
Type, draw, and drag images into it. It remembers its height.
Images can be up to 2 MB each, 10 MB in total. When it's full it says “Scratchpad is full. Delete an image to free space.”

A lecture in Page view with the scratchpad drawer pulled up from the bottom, showing typed notes, a sketch and an image — The scratchpad: one drawer per lecture.

Lectures on a phone New in 1.1

A phone opens the same lecture with a simpler toolbar. See Open a lecture on your phone.

Something wrong or missing on this page? Email support@polynotes.me.