Oria

Importing courses

How to turn a course PDF into flashcards and quizzes

A PDF holds your course material, but it does not ask you questions. In Oria, importing is the starting point for working with your materials through flashcards and quizzes, then finding what is due in your daily review.

Start with a clearly defined topic

Choose the chapter you want to work on: a statistics lesson, an introduction to law or one part of your syllabus. Give it a clear title so you can find the material after importing it.

Check that the pages are readable and in the right order. For a scanned document, clear text is easier to work with than a blurry photo. Start with one chapter before adding the rest of the subject.

Import, then choose how to practice

Add your PDF to Oria and place it in the relevant subject or chapter. Use flashcards to retrieve an answer from memory and quizzes to work through a choice of possible answers based on your imported course.

Before creating lots of exercises, read a few questions and compare their answers with the relevant course passage. This helps you spot an ambiguous question or information that needs correcting.

  • Begin with the main concepts in the chapter.
  • Keep each flashcard focused on one clear question.
  • Return to your course when an answer surprises you.

What does a useful question look like?

For a concept involving calculations, combine a definition with an application. The learning example below shows a possible approach; it is not a screenshot or an output generated by Oria.

Come back to what is due

Flashcards and multiple-choice questions managed by spaced repetition join your daily review when they are due. Oria adjusts their schedule using FSRS based on your answers and review history.

Importing starts a process you can continue over time. In your next session, work through the scheduled items, then return to the document to clarify anything that still needs work.

Your questions

Does this only work with PDFs?

No. Oria also supports Word and PowerPoint documents, text, photos, audio, and YouTube or web links. Available formats and limits are shown during import.

Do I need an iPad to import my courses?

No. You can also import and study on the web. iPad adds features including Apple Pencil handwriting and exercises directly inside your documents.

Keep exploring

Your turn, with your course.

Import your first course material into Oria to start working with it.

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