marginstudy.

A study app for your PDFs. On Mac.

Turn your textbook into your study guide.

A whole chapter is a lot for one sitting. So take it one sentence at a time. When something clicks, write it right under the line and keep going. Every note is progress you keep. By exam day, it’s your study guide.

Try marginstudy free

Free for 14 days. No account. No credit card.

For Macs with Apple silicon (M1 or newer)

Latest release: v1.4.0
A chemistry textbook sentence about the mole, highlighted, beside the words: You’ve read this sentence four times. Still lost.

Sound familiar?

Hours of studying.
Nothing sticks.

You read the same page again and again. Then you open ChatGPT, a video, your notes app. By the time something makes sense, you’ve lost your place, and the night is gone.

How it works

Write it down
where you get stuck.

Small notes, right inside your textbook. They add up.

  1. 01

    Open your PDF and read.

    A textbook, slides, or a reading. Go one section at a time, until a line stops you.

  2. 02

    Write under the line.

    Stuck? Press ⌘↩. The page opens up. Write what it means in your own words, then keep reading.

  3. 03

    Come back to it.

    Only half get it? Out of time? Leave a note. Next time, click it and you’re right back.

  4. 04

    Pull it together.

    Before the exam, put your notes on one page. That’s your study guide.

See it on a real textbook.

The marginstudy library: a grid of textbooks under the question, What would you like to understand?

Why we built marginstudy

Understanding is built
piece by piece.

Other note-taking apps help you organize whole pages. But understanding often hinges on one critical sentence—or a single word that stops you.

We built marginstudy for that moment. Put your question right under the line. Work through the sentence or word that’s holding you up. Keep what you discover beside the text, so you can build on it.

Understanding is built from words and sentences A textbook page expands into a quiet stack of smooth building blocks. Long, pale sentence blocks rest on smaller word blocks. Two of the word blocks are gold and read “critical”: keystones supporting the larger ideas above. Matching gold highlights connect these important words back to the sentence and page. Page Sentences critical critical Words

Smaller sections. Room to process. A review of 56 investigations found that breaking multimedia lessons into meaningful segments improved learning and reduced mental load, on average. Rey et al., 2019 (opens in a new tab)

Finding your place

Every note,
one click away.

Every note shows up on a map of the book. Click a dot and you’re back on that page. Try it.

Sample textbook

Dot products

1.1 The dot product

Note: Dot product: multiply the matching pairs, then add.
Note: For (1, 2) and (3, 4), I get 3 + 8 = 11.
Note: I can calculate a dot product. I’m still not sure when to use one.

1.2 A worked example

Note: Dot product = one number. I was expecting another vector.
1

Direction and angles

2.1 Vectors as arrows

2.2 Perpendicular vectors

Note: Why do perpendicular vectors have a dot product of zero?
2

Applications

3.1 Comparing vectors

3.2 Finding similar text

Note: Is a dot product how search compares two pieces of text?
Note: Review this dot-product example before the problem set.
3

Click a line to explore. Choose a dot to revisit a note.

Built for your Mac.

Pricing

One price.
No subscription.

Try everything free for 14 days with your own PDFs. No account and no credit card. If you like it, buy it once.

Notes that open up inside the page A map of every note in the book Scratchpads and a drawing canvas Everything saved on your Mac
MARGINSTUDY FOR MAC

Free for 14 days

No account. No credit card. Nothing charged automatically.

Try marginstudy free

Macs with Apple silicon · M1 or newer

Then keep it for

$39USD
once
Buy now

No subscription. Use it on 2 Macs.

Resources

A few
good books.

Free textbooks, shared by independent authors and universities. These links take you to their websites.

With thanks to the people who make learning more accessible.

Explore all resources

Questions.

Does it work with lecture slides?

Yes, if they’re a PDF you can select text in. That goes for textbooks, readings, and papers too. Scanned pages and busy layouts may have fewer spots for notes. Files up to 2,000 pages and 300 MB.

Which Macs does it run on?

Macs with Apple silicon (M1 or newer). It doesn’t run on Intel Macs yet.

Is there an iPhone or iPad version?

No. marginstudy is a Mac app. On your phone, tap Send to my Mac and download it there.

Where are my notes saved?

On your Mac, in the marginstudy workspace. Your PDF stays where it is. Keep it there, and back up your workspace to keep your notes safe.

How does the free trial work?

The 14 days start when you first open marginstudy. Use every feature with your own PDFs. No account, no credit card, and nothing is charged automatically. After that, buy it once for $39 to keep using it. Your notes stay yours either way, and you can export them. You’ll need internet to download, buy, and now and then check your license. Reading and writing work offline.

Your next study guide starts with the next sentence you don’t get.

Try marginstudy free

Free for 14 days. No account. No subscription.