Think
Turn a book into a mind map you can check against the page
Reading in a straight line works until the argument stops being straight. Open a canvas beside the book or the paper, lay its shape out before you start, and grow the map from the sentences that made you stop — each card one click from where it came from.
The whole book on one canvas before you start
The worst time to discover how a book is built is on page 280.
- Choose Book overview on any PDF or ebook and six cards come back beside it: the question it answers, its core claims in order of importance, the key concepts as this book uses them, how it is built, how to read it, and where it is disputed.
- A summary card in the middle ties the six into one reading of the book — its strongest claim and its sharpest tension — so you know what the map is a map of.
- The skeleton follows the book’s own section map — which chapters are the spine, which are cases you can skip — and “How to read” gives you routes: the fast one, the close one, and “you care about X, so start at chapter six”.
- Every line cites the text in your folder, so a card is a claim about the book you can check, not a blurb.
Stop at a sentence, and grow a branch from it
The overview is drawn before you read. The rest of the map is drawn from where you stopped.
- Select a passage while reading and send it to the canvas. The quote lands word for word under its chapter, as the root of a new branch, and a close reading starts on it straight away: what it says, what makes it hard, and how it ties into the rest of the book. The thinking picks up from the sentence that stopped you, not from the title.
- Every line on every card can be opened further — expanded, questioned, or given a method of its own — so the map goes deep exactly where the book is hard and nowhere else.
- The canvas beside the page belongs to this document: come back tomorrow and the board you built is the one that opens. When it gets big, open it full-size; one click puts it back beside the source.
Every card is one click from the page
A map you cannot check against the book is a summary with extra steps.
- Cards built from a document carry small citation marks. Hover one and the quoted sentence appears with the text around it — read from the book as it stands now, not from a copy made when the card was.
- Click and the book opens at that place with the passage highlighted.
- If that sentence is no longer in the document, or the document is no longer in your folder, the preview says so instead of pointing confidently at nothing.
Take the map with you when the book is done
A map that stays on the canvas is a map you will not look at again.
- Export any card together with its branch as a PNG — the one-page picture of the book — or as Markdown, to keep or to paste anywhere.
- Or turn the branch into a note in your folder, beside the book, where the rest of your notes and the assistant can find it.
- Or hand it to the writing pipeline as the outline of an article: the review, the reading report or the argument the book provoked.
Other shapes for what you are reading
A book overview is one shape. These are the others.
Several papers on one board
Put them side by side and Consensus and disagreement sorts where they agree, where they truly do not, and why; Comparative analysis puts them in one table.
One paper, laid out by its threads
Interpret sets out the question, the claims, how it argues, what is new and what it leaves out. Concept map and Timeline give a field its layers or its phases.
A critique on the part you doubt
A steelman of the author you disagree with, an assumption audit of the one you agree with too easily.
A hand-drawn map, rebuilt
Drop a photo of a mind map, a whiteboard or a flowchart onto the board, and Rebuild structure turns it into cards you keep editing.
A figure, taken apart
Drag a box around one panel of a figure or one row of a table and ask about just that; a chart can be read back into a table.
More than one map per book
A map of the argument, one of the methods, one of what you disagree with — each kept with the book, picked from a list rather than started blank.
A book, read with a map beside it
Draw the overview first
Six cards beside the book. Read the skeleton and the “How to read” card before chapter one, and pick your route.
Read, and stop where it matters
Select the passage that surprised you or that you do not believe, and grow a branch from it — with a method on it if the concept keeps tripping you up.
Check the cards you keep
Hover the citation marks. The ones that do not hold up are the ones to delete.
Take the map out
Export it as an image or Markdown, keep a branch as a note beside the book, or hand it to the writing pipeline as an outline.
Where it gets hard
- A map of a book is not having read it
The overview tells you where to look and what to argue with. What you conclude from chapter nine is still something you have to get by reading chapter nine.
- A title-only overview is from memory
Without the file, the cards come from what the model knows about the book — marked where uncertain, with no invented quotations or page numbers, but not checkable either. Add the book to your folder when it matters.
- A badly built or scanned book gives a thin map
The overview follows the book’s own sections, so an ebook with no real chapters has little to follow, and a scanned PDF needs recognition before any card can cite it.
- Cards are denser than a classic book map
Each branch is a short argument, not a keyword. That is better for thinking with and worse as a one-page poster of the book.
- Each expansion is a model run
An overview and a few expansions are cheap. Expanding every card of a 400-page book is not, and rarely worth it — the map earns its keep on the three chapters that matter.
- The rest of your folder is off by default
A board works on the book and what you add to it. Your other notes join only when you switch the knowledge base on for that board.
Common questions
Can AI turn a book or a PDF into a mind map?
Yes. Open the book or the paper and choose Book overview: a canvas opens beside it with six cards — the question the book answers, its core claims, its key concepts, how the book is built, how to read it, and where it is disputed — plus a summary card in the middle that ties them into one reading. They are worked out from the book’s own text and section map. From there you expand whichever line you want, or start new branches from passages you select while reading.
How is this different from a PDF-to-mind-map generator?
Most generators turn the headings into a tree once, and that is the end of it. Here each branch is a claim about the book with a citation back to the sentence it came from, any line can be expanded further, and the map keeps growing from the passages you select as you read.
Is the mind map linked back to the book?
Yes. Cards built from the document carry citation marks. Hover one to see the quoted sentence with the text around it as it stands in the book right now, and click to open the book at that place.
Can I export the mind map?
Yes. Any card can be exported together with its branch as a PNG image or as Markdown, turned into a note in your folder, or handed to the writing pipeline as the outline of an article.
What if I only have the title, not the book?
A book overview can still be drawn from general knowledge, under stricter rules: no invented chapter or page numbers, no quotation marks around anything, uncertain points marked as uncertain — and if the book is not known well enough, it says so and asks you to add the file rather than making six cards up.
Can one book have more than one map?
Yes. The canvas in the side panel belongs to the document you have open and follows you when you switch documents. One book can have several — a map of the argument, one of the methods, one of what you disagree with — and you choose which is open.
Can I turn a photo of a hand-drawn mind map into cards?
Yes. Drop the photo onto the canvas and apply Rebuild structure: the branches become cards you can keep editing and expanding. Whiteboard photos and flowcharts work the same way.
See also
The reader this canvas sits beside, navigated by chapter.
Papers and reports, with quotes that open the exact page.
The other way to have a whole book worked through — margin notes instead of a map.
The full set of methods you can put on a card.
The use case end to end: from a book to notes you will actually reuse.
The same canvas, starting from a question instead of a document.
One-shot generators, diagram editors, hand-built boards and this — which one fits which reader.
The step-by-step guide, including Book overview and growing a branch from a passage.