What are Smart Cards?
Smart Cards are AI-generated study cards that appear the moment you highlight text in your document. Instead of switching tabs, opening a dictionary, or writing your own notes, you select a passage and Max generates a structured card in context, using your full document as the source of truth.
Think of it as having a subject-matter tutor sitting next to you. When you point at a confusing term, they don't just read you a dictionary definition. They explain it in terms of what you're specifically studying, connect it to what you read earlier, and give you a mental image to make it stick.
That's what Smart Cards do. Automatically. Without breaking your reading flow.
How do Smart Cards work?
The interaction is intentionally simple. Here is exactly what happens from highlight to clipboard:
Select any text
Highlight a word, sentence, or entire paragraph in your document. A Smart Card button appears near your selection, no need to open a sidebar or leave the page.
Max generates the card
Tap the button and Max sends your selected text plus up to 2,000 characters of surrounding context to Gemini 2.5 Flash. The card appears in under three seconds.
Review the four-part card
Max returns a structured card: Definition, Context (how this fits your document's argument), Related Concepts, and a Memory Hook: a mnemonic or analogy chosen for this specific concept.
Export with one click
Tap Copy to Clipboard. The card is exported as rich HTML, bold text and formatting preserved, so you can paste it directly into Notion, Goodnotes, Obsidian, Apple Notes, or any notes app.
What does a Smart Card contain?
Every Smart Card has four sections, each designed to serve a specific purpose in your learning:
Definition
A clear, plain-English explanation of the selected term or concept. Not a dictionary definition, but a tutor's explanation calibrated to what you're reading.
Context
How this concept fits into the broader argument or thesis of your specific document. This is what separates Smart Cards from a Google search. The explanation is grounded in your material.
Related Concepts
Two or three adjacent ideas that help anchor this concept in your existing knowledge. Connecting new information to prior knowledge is one of the most effective encoding strategies in cognitive science.
Memory Hook
A mnemonic, analogy, or vivid mental image chosen specifically for this concept. Memory hooks exploit the brain's preference for narrative and imagery over abstract information.
What does a Smart Card look like?
Here is an example of a Smart Card generated from a highlighted passage in a cognitive psychology paper about working memory:
“The phonological loop stores verbal information for approximately 2 seconds before it decays unless refreshed...”
Definition
The phonological loop is a component of working memory that temporarily holds and rehearses sound-based information. It has two parts: a phonological store (a short-term buffer for sounds) and an articulatory rehearsal process (inner speech that refreshes the store).
Context in this paper
The authors use the phonological loop to explain why reading comprehension degrades when participants perform a concurrent verbal task. The loop is occupied and can't support syntactic parsing.
Related Concepts
Baddeley's Working Memory Model, visuospatial sketchpad, central executive, articulatory suppression effect.
Memory Hook
Think of the phonological loop as a voice memo that auto-deletes in 2 seconds. You have to keep pressing record (rehearsing) or the clip is gone.
Example card, generated from a real research paper passage in under 3 seconds.
How is this different from Anki or Quizlet?
Anki and Quizlet are excellent review tools. Smart Cards are not a review tool. They are a comprehension aid that lives inside your reading workflow. The distinction matters:
| Anki | Quizlet | Smart Cards | |
|---|---|---|---|
| When you use it | After reading | After reading | During reading |
| Who creates the card | You | You (or import) | Max (AI) |
| Uses your document | No | No | Yes, full context |
| Includes memory hook | No | No | Yes, always |
| Setup time | High | Medium | Zero |
| Export to notes | Limited | Limited | Rich HTML, paste anywhere |
Smart Cards and spaced-repetition tools are better together. Use Smart Cards to understand concepts as you read, then paste the exported cards into Anki or Notion for spaced repetition review later.
Can I export Smart Cards to my notes app?
Yes, and the export is genuinely useful, not just a text dump. The Copy to Clipboard button writes rich HTML to your clipboard, so bold text, labels, and formatting are preserved when you paste into apps that support it.
Pastes with bold and structure intact
Pastes as formatted text block
Pastes with markdown-like formatting
Preserves bold text and line breaks
Full rich text formatting
Automatic plain-text fallback
For apps that only accept plain text, the export automatically strips the HTML and pastes clean, readable text. No manual cleanup required.
Who is Smart Cards for?
Students building flashcard decks
Generate cards from your assigned readings without the painful step of writing them yourself. Paste into Anki when you're done.
Grad students reading research papers
Encountering an unfamiliar methodology or concept? Highlight it and get an explanation grounded in how this specific paper uses it.
Professionals learning new domains
Reading outside your area of expertise means constantly hitting unfamiliar jargon. Smart Cards handle it in-place without breaking your reading flow.
Anyone who uses Notion or Goodnotes
If your notes system lives in Notion, Obsidian, or Goodnotes, Smart Cards give you a direct pipeline from reading to notes without retyping a word.
How do you use Smart Cards?
Three steps:
- Open any document in Recitare (PDF, DOCX, TXT, PPTX, image, or URL)
- Select any text by clicking and dragging across a word, sentence, or paragraph
- Tap the Smart Card button that appears near your selection and the card generates automatically
The card appears inline, no page navigation, no new tab. When you're done reading it, copy it or dismiss it and continue reading from exactly where you were.
Frequently asked questions
What are Smart Cards?
Smart Cards are AI-generated study cards that appear whenever you highlight text in your document. Max reads the selected passage alongside the surrounding document context and produces a structured card with a definition, contextual explanation, related concepts, and a memory hook, all in seconds.
How do Smart Cards work?
Select any text in your document. A Smart Card button appears near your selection. Tap it and Max sends your highlighted text plus up to 2,000 characters of surrounding context to Gemini 2.5 Flash. The AI generates a structured study card in under three seconds. You can then copy it with one click.
What does a Smart Card contain?
Every Smart Card has four sections: (1) Definition, a clear, plain-English explanation of the selected term or concept; (2) Context, how the concept fits into the broader argument or topic of your document; (3) Related Concepts, two or three adjacent ideas that help anchor this concept in your existing knowledge; (4) Memory Hook, a mnemonic, analogy, or vivid image to help the idea stick long-term.
How is this different from Anki or Quizlet?
Anki and Quizlet require you to create cards manually. You do the work, then you study. Smart Cards generate the card for you from the passage you're already reading, using full document context. You don't break your reading flow, you don't write anything, and the explanation is grounded in your specific document, not a generic dictionary definition.
Can I export Smart Cards?
Yes. The Copy to Clipboard button exports rich HTML: bold text, line breaks, and formatting all preserved. Paste directly into Notion, Obsidian, Goodnotes, Apple Notes, or any app that accepts formatted text. For apps that only accept plain text, the fallback automatically strips the formatting.
Does Smart Cards work with all document types?
Yes. Smart Cards work with any document you can open in Recitare: PDFs, DOCX files, TXT files, PowerPoint slides, images processed via OCR, and web content imported via URL. Text selection is available on all formats.
Is Smart Cards free to use?
Smart Cards are available on all plans. Free users get a limited number of AI interactions per day. Reader ($5/month) and Pro ($18/month) subscribers get unlimited Smart Card generation subject to fair-use soft caps.
Does Max use my full document as context?
Max uses up to 2,000 characters of surrounding text as context when generating a Smart Card. This is enough to capture the paragraph, the section heading, and adjacent ideas, so the card reflects what your document says about the concept, not a generic internet definition.