DecksMD 2.9.0

Decks 2.9.0 — PDFs, longer generations, and a hosted AI option

This release adds PDF support to the AI generator, changes generation to work in batches so it can cover a long source, and introduces Decks Pro — an optional hosted AI provider for people who would rather not manage an API key. Bring-your-own key is unchanged and still free.

Generate flashcards from a PDF

You can attach a PDF to the AI generator, from your vault or from your computer. The PDF's outline is read and shown as a chapter list with page ranges, and only the chapters you tick are used — so a single chapter of a long textbook costs that chapter, not the book.

Scanned pages, lecture slides and photographed pages are transcribed before they are used, so a PDF with no text layer still produces cards. Transcription requires Decks Pro; with your own API key, text is extracted directly from the PDF instead.

Each transcribed page is cached as its own Markdown file, so re-running a chapter, or coming back to a PDF later, costs nothing. The cache keeps the page's headings, lists and tables, and writes maths as LaTeX. Its location is configurable under Settings → AI; point it at a normal vault folder and the transcriptions become ordinary notes you can link to and search.

Generation continues until the source is covered

Generation now runs in batches instead of a single pass. After a batch you can continue, and the cards produced so far are sent back as context so the next batch does not repeat them. When the model has nothing substantive left to add it says so, and the generator stops suggesting more.

You can also choose a destination folder and append to an existing deck rather than always creating a new file.

Per-prompt model selection

The model or quality tier is now chosen in the generation and refactor dialogs rather than only in settings, and your choice is remembered per dialog. A debug view shows the exact exchange behind a generation.

Decks Pro

An optional hosted provider: sign in once and generate without configuring an API key. You pick a tier — Flash or Thinking — and the model behind it is kept current. It is the only way to run OCR on scanned PDFs.

Everything else in Decks remains free and unchanged, including bring-your-own key for OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, and any OpenAI-compatible or local endpoint. With your own key, requests go from your machine to your provider and no Decks server is involved.

Release notes open after an update

After updating, this page opens once in a tab so you can see what changed. It will not open again until the next update.

Fixes

• Review history is no longer stranded when a card's identity changes: orphaned review logs are re-pointed to the current card, so scheduling survives the migration.
• Chapter page ranges in the PDF outline are computed correctly. A chapter's range now spans all of its sub-sections, and entries whose destination cannot be resolved no longer collapse onto page 1, which previously made unrelated chapters share an identical range.
• Attached notes and images are bounded, so a very large attachment can no longer overflow the request.