The AI workspace for your lecture notes

Lecture notes are supposed to be your record of what was taught. In practice, they're incomplete fragments scattered across too many places. You type notes in one app while the lecturer talks faster than you can capture. You photograph the whiteboard on your phone. The slides are a PDF you downloaded from the course portal. The recording, if you made one, is an audio file you'll never scrub through. The readings that connect to the lecture are in another folder entirely. By exam season, a semester of lectures exists as a mess of partial notes, orphaned photos, downloaded PDFs, and memories that have already started to fade. The material was covered. The system for retrieving and studying from it doesn't work.

Fabric keeps everything from every lecture in one place: your typed notes, the full transcript, the slides, the board photos, and the readings, all searchable by meaning, with an AI that helps you review from the complete picture rather than your incomplete notes.

Record every lecture and get a searchable transcript

Your own typed notes are always partial. You can't type as fast as a lecturer talks, and you can't think about what's being said while also capturing it verbatim. The important thing you missed is the thing you'll need most during revision.

AI voice notes record the lecture and produce a timestamped, searchable transcript. The transcript captures everything that was said, including the explanation that happened too fast to type, the tangent that turned out to be important, and the answer to the question someone asked at the end.

Your typed notes and the transcript merge into a single document. You capture the key points and your own thinking while the transcription captures the rest. After class, you have both: your focused notes and the complete record, together and searchable.

For lectures you didn't record yourself, audio and video transcription handles recordings from any source. A lecture recording posted by your professor is transcribed and searchable once you save it.

Search across every lecture by meaning

Finding what was covered in a specific lecture shouldn't mean scrolling through weeks of notes. AI search reads inside every transcript, note, slide deck, and PDF, and searches by meaning. Ask "when did we cover the Krebs cycle" or "the lecture about supply and demand elasticity" and find the exact lecture, the relevant section of the transcript, and your notes about it.

The search works across an entire semester or across your whole degree. Material from a first-year lecture is findable when a final-year course references it. You don't need to remember which week, which module, or which file. You describe the topic and find everything that covers it.

The AI assistant works from your lecture content. Ask it to summarise what was covered in a specific class, explain a concept using the lecturer's own explanation, find where a topic was introduced across multiple lectures, or quiz you on the material. It draws from your transcripts, notes, and slides, not from the internet.

Slides, board photos, and readings alongside your notes

A lecture doesn't exist only in your notes. The slides have diagrams the lecturer referenced. The whiteboard has the derivation they worked through. The readings have the detail the lecture summarised. In most setups, these live in separate places: slides in a downloads folder, photos in your camera roll, readings in a different app.

In Fabric, everything from a lecture lives together. Save the slides as a PDF. Photograph the board with the mobile app and quick capture. Save the readings. All of it joins the same searchable space as your notes and the transcript. Fabric reads text inside photographed whiteboards and slides, so a board photo is as searchable as a typed note.

Annotate directly on slides and readings with highlights and comments. Mark the key diagram. Note the part that connects to something from a previous lecture. Flag the section you don't understand yet. Your annotations are searchable, so the thinking you do while studying is as findable as the source material.

Study from the complete picture

When you sit down to revise, the full record is there. Search a topic and pull the lecture transcript, the slides, the readings, and your notes into view at once. Ask the AI assistant to summarise a week's lectures, explain a concept you're struggling with using the material from class, or quiz you on the content. The revision draws on everything, not just the fragments you managed to write down.

This is where the completeness of the record matters most. Your typed notes captured the key points. The transcript captured the explanations. The slides have the diagrams. The readings have the depth. Together, they're a body of knowledge you can study from effectively. Separately, they're fragments that leave gaps.

For structured study approaches, see the guides to student study system, the Cornell method, and note-taking basics.

Start with a template

For structured lecture capture, the template marketplace includes templates designed for academic note-taking: Cornell method lecture notes for the classic two-column format, and SQ3R study notes for active reading and review.

The templates give your typed notes a structure while the transcription handles completeness. You can also create your own templates for courses that benefit from a specific format.

Organised by module, searchable across everything

Group lectures by module or course using spaces. Each module's lectures, slides, readings, and notes live together, browsable when you need focus. Smart organization automatically tags lecture content by topic, so material categorises itself as you add it.

Search works within a module for focused revision and across your whole library for connections between courses. A concept from an early module that's relevant to a later one is findable across both. The courses build on each other because the system sees all of them.

Fabric syncs across devices, so notes taken on your laptop in the lecture hall are searchable on your phone when you're reviewing on the bus.

Who uses Fabric for lecture notes

Lecture notes are central to the student experience. Students at every level capture lectures for studying and exam prep. PhD and masters students record seminars alongside their dissertation research. Student teams use shared lecture notes for group projects. Educators record their own lectures for review and course development.

For academic reading alongside lectures, see the literature review and reading and learning use cases.

Get started

Record, transcribe, and search every lecture, and study from the complete picture instead of incomplete notes. Try Fabric free.

Browse study templates for structured note-taking. Comparing tools? See why students choose Fabric as the best AI study app and the best AI note-taking app for students.

FAQs

Can Fabric record and transcribe lectures?

Yes. AI voice notes record and transcribe any lecture with a timestamped, searchable transcript. No meeting bot required. Record on your laptop or phone.

Can I type my own notes while recording?

Yes. Your typed notes and the transcript merge into a single document. You capture key points and your thinking while the transcription captures everything else.

Can I search for what was covered in a specific lecture?

Yes. AI search reads inside every transcript, note, slide, and PDF, and searches by meaning. Describe the topic and find the lecture, the relevant section, and your notes.

Can the AI help me study from my lecture notes?

Yes. The AI assistant can summarise lectures, explain concepts using the lecturer's own words, quiz you on material, and find connections across classes. It works from your transcripts and notes, not from the internet.

Can I photograph the whiteboard and have it searchable?

Yes. Take a photo with the mobile app. Fabric reads the text in the photo, so a whiteboard capture is searchable alongside your typed notes and the transcript.

Can I keep slides and readings alongside my notes?

Yes. Save slides, PDFs, and readings in the same space as your notes and transcript. Everything is searchable together. Annotate directly on slides and readings.

Can I search across an entire semester?

Yes. Search works across every lecture, every module, and every file type. Material from week one is findable when you're revising in week twelve.

Are there templates for lecture notes?

Yes. The template marketplace includes Cornell method lecture notes and SQ3R study notes.

Does it work across my laptop and phone?

Yes. Fabric syncs across devices. Take notes on your laptop in class and review on your phone later.

Can I share lecture notes with classmates?

Yes. Share a space with classmates and everyone can access the same notes, transcripts, and materials. See group projects.

Can I organise notes by module?

Yes. Use spaces to group each module's lectures, slides, readings, and notes. Smart organization adds automatic tagging by topic. Search works within a module or across everything.

How is this different from just using a notes app?

A notes app holds what you type. Fabric holds your typed notes, the full lecture transcript, the slides, the board photos, and the readings, all searchable by meaning, with an AI that reviews it with you. The difference shows up at revision time: you study from everything, not just the fragments you managed to write down.

Are my lecture notes private?

Yes. Your content is encrypted and only visible to you unless you choose to share it. Fabric uses AES-256 encryption and is CASA Tier 2 compliant.