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Cornell notes from slides
Upload a lecture deck and get Cornell notes: cue questions, notes and a summary for each topic. About 30 seconds, free, no account.
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Free · no account · 3 decks a day · files are never stored
Cornell notes are the format study-skills courses recommend because of the cue column: questions written beside the notes, so you can cover the notes and answer the questions. The hard part is writing good cue questions, which takes longer than the notes themselves. Nuutli writes them for you from the deck. Every topic gets two or three cue questions that the section actually answers, detailed notes with the definitions and numbers kept exactly, and a two or three sentence summary. The whole thing ends with an overall summary of the lecture. The Word download uses headings for the cues, notes and summary, so you can lay it out in two columns or study it as it is.
Quick facts
What you get, in one list
- Price
- Free. 3 decks a day, no account, no card.
- Sign-up
- None. Upload and read the notes.
- Works on
- Any browser: Mac, Windows, Chromebook, iPad, phone.
- Input
- PowerPoint (.pptx), PDF, or a Google Slides share link. Speaker notes are read too.
- Output
- Word (.docx), Markdown, PDF via print, or copy to clipboard.
- Limits
- Up to 80 slides and 20 MB per deck on the free tier.
- Time
- About 30 seconds for a typical lecture.
- Privacy
- Files are processed in memory and never stored. Nothing is used for training.
- Languages
- Notes come back in the language of the slides: English, Spanish, French, German, Arabic and more.
Real example
A macroeconomics lecture as Cornell notes
One topic from a lecture on inflation. Cover the notes, answer the cue questions, check the summary.
Slides in
- Slide 6: Measuring inflation
- - CPI: price of a fixed basket of goods, base year = 100
- - Inflation rate = (CPI this year - CPI last year) / CPI last year x 100
- - Core inflation excludes food and energy (volatile)
- Slide 7: Problems with CPI
- - Substitution bias: people switch to cheaper goods, basket does not
- - Quality change bias: better products at the same price look like inflation
- - New goods bias: basket updated slowly
- - Boskin Commission (1996): CPI overstated inflation by about 1.1 points a year
Notes out
Measuring inflation and the limits of CPI
Cue questions
- How is the inflation rate calculated from the CPI?
- Why is core inflation reported separately from headline inflation?
- What are the three biases that make the CPI overstate inflation, and by how much?
Notes
- The CPI measures the price of a fixed basket of goods, with the base year set to 100.
- Inflation rate = (CPI this year - CPI last year) / CPI last year x 100.
- Core inflation excludes food and energy because their prices are volatile.
- Substitution bias: people switch to cheaper goods but the basket does not change.
- Quality change bias: better products at the same price look like inflation.
- New goods bias: the basket is updated slowly.
- The Boskin Commission (1996) found the CPI overstated inflation by about 1.1 percentage points a year.
Summary
- The CPI tracks a fixed basket against a base year of 100 and gives the inflation rate by its year-on-year change. Because it ignores substitution, quality improvements and new goods, it overstates inflation, by about 1.1 points a year according to the 1996 Boskin Commission.
How it works
Make Cornell notes in three steps
- 1
Upload the lecture
PPTX, PDF or a Google Slides link. One lecture per run gives the cleanest topic sections.
- 2
Choose Cornell notes
Preselected here. Cue questions are written from what each section actually covers.
- 3
Study with the cues
Cover the notes, answer the cue questions, read the summary. Download Word to lay it out in two columns.
How to study from Cornell notes
The Cornell method has three parts and a routine. The notes column holds the content. The cue column holds questions and keywords that point at the notes. The summary at the bottom states the section in two or three sentences. The routine is what makes it work: within a day, read the notes and write the cues (Nuutli does this part); then, each time you revise, cover the notes column and answer the cues aloud; finally, read the summary to check you have the shape of the topic, not just the facts.
The cue questions matter most, and they must be answerable from the notes beside them. Nuutli writes two or three per topic from the slide content, so every question has its answer in the section. If a lecturer stressed something in class that the slides only hinted at, add a cue of your own in the Word file; the format is made for that.
- In Word, select the Cue questions and Notes headings and apply a two-column table if you want the classic layout.
- Read the overall summary first when you come back to the lecture weeks later; then go section by section.
- Pair Cornell notes with the Quiz style in exam week: the cues are your questions, the quiz is your check.
In short
To make Cornell notes from slides, upload the PowerPoint, PDF or Google Slides deck to Nuutli and choose Cornell notes. Each topic gets cue questions, detailed notes and a short summary, with an overall summary at the end, written from the slides and speaker notes in about 30 seconds. Free, no sign-up, Word download.
Last reviewed November 3, 2026 by the Nuutli team.
Frequently asked questions
How do I make Cornell notes from a PowerPoint?+
Upload the deck to Nuutli, choose Cornell notes and click Make my Cornell notes. Each topic gets cue questions, detailed notes and a summary, with an overall summary at the end, in about 30 seconds. Download as Word.
Are the cue questions written from the slides?+
Yes. Every cue question is one the section's own notes answer, so you can cover the notes and test yourself without anything missing.
Can I get the two-column layout?+
The Word download uses headings for Cue questions, Notes and Summary so it reads correctly as it is. For the classic layout, put the cues and notes of each topic into a two-column table in Word; it takes a minute.
Does it work from a PDF?+
Yes. PDF exports and Google Slides links are read the same way as PowerPoint files, including 2-up and 4-up handouts.
How many cue questions per topic?+
Two or three per topic, which is the usual Cornell recommendation. A long lecture with many topics produces more sections, not more questions per section.
Is the Cornell notes generator free?+
Yes. Three decks a day, up to 80 slides, no account, Word and Markdown download.
Turn your next lecture into notes
Upload the slides and read the notes in about 30 seconds. Free, no account, the file is never stored.