Turn a Lecture, PDF, or Article Into Study Notes
Paste a link, drop in a PDF, or paste your own notes. StudyClock's AI summarizer turns any of them into a study note with a summary, a list of key points, and a list of key terms with short definitions. It takes four kinds of input, and they are not read the same way. Depending on what you give it, the work goes to one of two AI providers, and a long paste, a PDF, and a YouTube link all take a different path from a short paste or a web page.
This page covers what each input accepts and where it stops, what the depth and format settings change, how credits are charged, and what you can do with a summary once it exists. The tool needs a StudyClock account, and signed-out visitors land on a sign-in screen. Prices and limits on this page match the tool as of October 2026, and plan prices and billing are explained on the pricing page. When you are ready, open the summarizer.
The short version: pasted text (50 to 15,000 characters), PDFs (up to 30 pages and 20 MB), YouTube links, and web article links all work. A free account pays 5 credits for text or a web page, 8 for a YouTube video, and 8 per 10 PDF pages. Pro pays 3, 5, and 5. Depth sets how long the result is, and the output format changes what kind of note you get back.
Text, PDF, YouTube, and website input
You pick one of four tabs: Text, PDF, YouTube, or Website. Each tab ends in the same kind of result, but the route to it differs. The route decides which AI model reads your source and how much of the source it gets to see. These are the model assignments as of October 2026.
Plain text. Paste or type anything from 50 to 15,000 characters, which is about one short paragraph at the low end and roughly 2,500 words at the high end. Text of 3,000 characters or fewer goes to OpenAI's GPT-4o-mini. Longer text goes to Google's Gemini 2.5 Flash. You never choose the model. Ctrl or Cmd plus Enter summarizes without leaving the box, and the box shows a live word count and reading time as you paste.
PDF upload. Drag a file onto the box, click to browse, or paste a file while the box is selected. Only PDF files are accepted, up to 20 MB. The next section covers the page limit, scanned files, and the cost estimate in detail.
YouTube link. Paste a video link and click away from the field. A card with the video's title and channel appears, so you can check you pasted the right one. The summarizer then tries two routes. First, it gives the link to Gemini, which can take in the video's audio and picture directly, so no captions are needed. If that fails, for example because the video is private or age-restricted, it falls back to the video's caption transcript and summarizes that text. If the video has no captions either, you get an error message and your credits come back. Both routes ask the AI for a list of chapters with start times. In the result, each chapter time is a link that opens the video at that moment in a new tab.
Website link. Paste the address of an article or blog post. The tool downloads the page and pulls out the article body with Mozilla's Readability library, the same idea behind browser reader modes, which drops menus, ads, and sidebars. It then reads the first 15,000 characters of that article text and sends it to GPT-4o-mini. A page that yields fewer than 500 characters of article text is turned down, which is what happens with most paywalled and login-only pages. A link that points straight to a PDF is turned down too, with a message to use the PDF tab. YouTube links are sent to the YouTube tab.
Your text, the words from your PDF, or the article's text is passed to the AI provider named above so it can write the summary. Storage and data handling are covered in the terms of use and the privacy policy. Use the tool on material you have the right to read, because a summary does not change who owns the original.
Summary depth and output format settings
Three settings shape the result, and they sit in different places on the screen. Depth is a row of three cards inside the input panel. Output format and language are menus in the toolbar above it. Focus is a small note box that opens from the toolbar.
Depth sets length and coverage, and the tool sends it to the AI as an instruction.
| Depth | Key points | Key terms | Summary length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quick | 3 | 3 | 2 to 3 sentences |
| Standard (default) | 5 to 7 | 5 to 7 | 4 to 6 sentences |
| Detailed | 10 or more | 10 or more | 8 to 12 sentences |
Quick suits a refresher on a topic you mostly know. Detailed suits a source you are meeting for the first time and need to learn, not just recognize.
Output format sets the shape. There are five.
Standard
is a written summary with key points and key terms.
TL;DR
asks for a 3-sentence overview only. The key points and key terms sections are left empty, so they do not appear.
Study Guide
asks for an overview, 8 to 10 core concepts, and a glossary of important terms.
Table
returns the summary as a table with the columns Topic, Sub-topic, and Key Detail.
Bullet Notes
returns the summary as a nested outline in the style of Cornell notes.
Each format sends its own instruction, so switching formats and pressing Summarize again is a new generation, not a reshaped copy of the old one. That also means it costs credits again.
Focus takes up to 500 characters telling the AI what to pay attention to or leave out, such as "focus on economic causes, ignore the political context." A specific note changes the result more than a vague one.
Credit costs by input type
Every credit is charged before the AI starts, and every route gives the credits back if the AI step fails.
| Input | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Text | 5 credits | 3 credits |
| Website link | 5 credits | 3 credits |
| YouTube video | 8 credits | 5 credits |
| PDF, per 10 pages (rounded up) | 8 credits | 5 credits |
PDF pricing follows the real page count, rounded up to a whole group of 10. A 25-page file is three groups, so 24 credits on Free or 15 on Pro. A one-page file still costs one full group, 8 credits on Free.
Every new account opens with a balance of 50 credits. Free accounts receive 10 more on the first of each month, and that refill tops the balance up to a ceiling of 60. In practice the monthly refill covers two text summaries. Pro accounts receive 400 credits a month up to a ceiling of 600, which is enough for 133 text summaries at 3 credits each. Credits are shared across every AI tool on StudyClock, so a flashcard deck draws from the same balance.
Some failures happen before any charge. A file that is not a PDF, a PDF over 30 pages, a scanned PDF, a web page with too little text, and a website link to a private address are all refused first. You pay only once the source has passed those checks.
Credit cost shown on screen
The number beside the Summarize button is a fixed figure, not a read of your account. Text and website links show 5 credits, and YouTube shows 10. These match the Free price for text and web pages, but not for YouTube, which really costs 8 on Free and 5 on Pro. The real charge is the one in the table above, and your balance in the page header shows what was taken once the summary is done.
The figure also acts as a gate. Each Summarize button is disabled whenever your balance falls under the number beside it. Two things follow from that. A Pro account with 3 or 4 credits cannot start a text summary, even though it costs 3. A Free account with 8 or 9 credits cannot start a YouTube summary, even though it costs 8. If the button is off and you believe you can afford the real price, the on-screen figure is the reason.
PDF limits and the page estimate
A PDF has to pass four checks, in this order, and none of them costs a credit. The file must start like a real PDF, so a renamed file is refused whatever its extension says. The tool must be able to read it, which fails for password-protected or damaged files. It must contain real text, because a PDF made of scanned images has no text layer and the summarizer has no way to read pictures of words. And it must run to 30 pages or fewer. A longer file is refused with a message that gives its page count and the limit, and the tool does not summarize just the first 30 pages.
For a scanned PDF, take photos or screenshots of the pages and feed the images to the Scan Notes tool, which reads images and not PDFs. Its Summarize button then fills this tool's text tab with the result.
Thirty pages covers a textbook chapter, most journal papers, or a set of lecture slides. A longer source can be split in two and uploaded twice. Each upload is billed on its own, so a 40-page file split into two 20-page parts costs 16 credits per part on Free, 32 in all.
One more limit applies to long files. The tool extracts the text, and only the first 50,000 characters of it go to the AI. A dense 30-page document can run past that, in which case the last pages are not part of the summary. If a source is that long and the end matters, upload it in two parts.
The estimate. Before you upload, the tool has no way to know the page count, so it guesses from the file size at about 1 page for every 3 KB and prices that guess at the Free rate. The cost label then reads "Costs about" and a number. A 150 KB file is guessed at 50 pages and shows about 40 credits. A 1 MB file is guessed at 342 pages and shows about 280 credits, even if it is a 20-page slide deck full of photos. The real count is read from the file on the server, and that count sets the actual charge. The Summarize PDF button, though, is disabled whenever your balance falls under the estimate. A smaller file therefore shows a smaller estimate, and a file under about 200 KB can always be started from a full Free balance of 60.
Ask a follow-up question about a saved summary
Once a summary is saved, an "Ask a follow-up" panel opens under it. You type a question of 3 to 500 characters, or pick one of four starter ideas such as "Explain this in simpler words." The AI answers in two to four sentences and stays on the topic.
Two details are easy to miss. The AI answers from the saved summary and its key points, not from your original PDF, video, or article. A question about a detail that never made it into the summary may get a thin answer. And each answer costs 2 credits on both plans, with a ceiling of 5 questions per summary. Five small dots under the panel show how many you have left. An answer that fails is refunded.
Before you save, the panel shows a short note instead. Save first, then ask.
Saving, copying, and downloading a summary
A finished summary has more on it than the text. The top row shows the summary's length in words with an estimated reading time, and counts of key points and key terms. For text input there is also a "Shorter by" percentage that compares the summary with your notes.
Key points work as a tick list. Tap a point once you know it, and a counter shows how many you have covered, such as 3 of 7. Ticks live on the screen only and are not saved.
You can copy the summary, the chapters, the key points, or the key terms one section at a time, or copy the whole note at once. The Download button saves the whole note as a Markdown file named after the source title. Markdown is plain text with simple symbols for headings and lists, so any notes app can open it.
Save puts the summary in your AI Notes Library. You give it a title of up to 200 characters and can add up to 8 tags. A free library has room for 20 saved AI items, counted across every AI tool together, so saved decks, maps, and exams share the same 20 places. Generating a summary does not use a place. Only saving does, which means a full library blocks the save and the follow-up questions, but not the summary itself. Pro has no limit.
Using a summary in other StudyClock tools
The summary screen has Copy, Download, and Save buttons, and none of them sends the text to another tool. To build flashcards, a mind map, or a practice exam from a summary, copy the summary and drop it into the other tool's text field. Check the character limit of the box you paste into, because the flashcard generator, the mind map generator, and the practice exam generator each accept less text than the 15,000 characters allowed here.
One handoff does reach the summarizer. In the Scan Notes tool, the Summarize button opens this tool's Text tab with the scanned words already in the box, marked "Imported from Scan notes." The handoff expires after 5 minutes. A scan longer than 15,000 characters keeps the Summarize button off until you trim it.
Worked example: three sources for one exam
Suppose you are revising for a history exam with three sources: a text-based PDF of assigned reading, a recorded lecture on YouTube, and a long article a classmate sent you. You have the 50 credits a new account starts with.
Start with the PDF. It runs to 22 pages and is about 100 KB. The screen guesses 34 pages and shows about 32 credits, which is under your balance, so the button is on. The real count is 22 pages, three groups of 10, so you pay 24 credits at Standard depth. Your balance is now 26.
Next, the lecture. The screen says 10 credits and you have 26, so the button is on, and the real charge is 8. Your balance is 18. Then the article, at Quick depth because you already know the topic and only want to check you have missed nothing. That costs 5 credits and leaves 13.
The total is 37 credits. The 13 left is enough for six follow-up questions at 2 credits each, though one summary takes at most five. Save the PDF summary first, since follow-ups only work on saved summaries.
Who should use the summarizer
The summarizer pays off most when your material arrives in mixed forms. A course that mixes textbook chapters, recorded lectures, and linked articles usually means switching between apps. Here, the three forms come back as the same kind of note: a summary, key points, and key terms. A student with a backlog of recorded lectures, or one preparing for a competitive exam such as JEE, NEET, or UPSC with a heavy reading list, gets the clearest use from it.
It helps less with material you already understand well, because summarizing something you could explain from memory only adds a step. It will not carry a dense, argument-heavy source for you, either. A summary of a 40-page philosophy paper shows the shape of the argument, but not its full weight, so you still need to read the parts your exam will test. If the text is already short and in one format, plain notes cost nothing.
A cheap first run: paste a page of your own notes into the Text tab, keep Standard depth, and press Summarize. On a free account that costs 5 credits and leaves 45 of the 50 you start with. Save the result and ask one follow-up question for 2 more credits, and you will have used the text route, saving, and follow-ups for 7 credits in all.
Free plan and Pro plan
| Free | Pro ($4.99 a month) | |
|---|---|---|
| Text or website summary | 5 credits | 3 credits |
| YouTube summary | 8 credits | 5 credits |
| PDF, per 10 pages | 8 credits | 5 credits |
| Follow-up question | 2 credits | 2 credits |
| Summary language | English only | English plus 7 others |
| Monthly credits | 10, up to a balance of 60 | 400, up to a balance of 600 |
| Saved AI items | 20 | Unlimited |
The language menu is the one control that Pro adds. Pro summaries can come back in Hindi, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Japanese, or Portuguese. On a free account, the language control shows English with a PRO badge that links to the pricing page. Depth, formats, the focus note, and the 30-page limit are the same on both plans. The remaining differences are price per summary, the size of the monthly credit pool, and the number of saved items.
Frequently Asked Questions
Up to 30 pages and 20 MB. The limit is checked before you are charged, and a longer file is refused with a message giving its real page count, not summarized in part.
Yes, on Pro. The language menu offers Hindi, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Japanese, and Portuguese. A free account sees English with a PRO badge in its place.
Not at first. The tool gives the link to Gemini, which takes in the video directly, so captions are not needed. It reads the caption transcript only if that first route fails, and a video with no captions and no direct access ends in an error with your credits returned.
No. The summary screen offers Copy, Download, and Save, but no button that sends it to another tool. Copy the text and drop it into the other tool's text field. The one automatic handoff runs the other way, from Scan Notes into this tool's Text tab.
The credits you were charged are returned on their own, and you see an error message instead of an empty result. A follow-up answer that fails is refunded in the same way.
No. Each format sends its own instruction to the AI, so changing the format and summarizing again is a new generation, and it costs credits again.
Each button is disabled whenever your balance falls under the credit figure beside it. That figure is 5 for text and web pages and 10 for YouTube on every account, and for PDFs it is a guess based on file size. Pro pays less than the figure, and a PDF with large images can show a high guess.
It reads the first 50,000 characters of a PDF's text and the first 15,000 characters of a web article. Pasted text is limited to 15,000 characters by the box itself. For a longer source, summarize it in parts.