{"id":7473,"date":"2025-02-12T19:40:50","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T19:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learningaloud.com\/blog\/?p=7473"},"modified":"2025-02-12T22:26:54","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T22:26:54","slug":"ai-in-readwise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learningaloud.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/12\/ai-in-readwise\/","title":{"rendered":"AI in Readwise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

 How do most Readwise<\/a> users use the service? Is it the central location in which you suck in the notes and highlights from the multiple tools you use to read the multiple categories of content you consume to review and work with that content or is it a relay station between these sources and the tools you use to store, organize, expand on, and apply this content? I can\u2019t really remember what I was thinking when I first paid the subscription price, but over the majority of the time I have used Readwise, it was mainly as a relay station. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those who have never tried Readwise, it may be unclear why you would want to pay the price of a subscription. The first paragraph of this post may have meant little to you even though I think it represents a reasonable description of the ways Readwise is used. Consider this example. I have made use of Kindle for years and have a collection of more than 300 books. I highlight a lot while I read and add occasional annotations. Most of this content is nonfiction and the source for what I write about. All of these highlights and annotations are out there somewhere, but how do I locate what might be helpful when it is scattered across so many sources many of which I might have read years ago? Readwise accepts the highlights from each of these books that is automatically output from Kindle and this entire body of material ends up in Readwise and can then be searched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, somewhere along the way, Readwise added Readwise Reader<\/a> and this addition became a major tool.  With Reader I found a \u201cread it later tool\u201d I used mainly to collect web content I could highlight and annotate and then send the content I added or identified through the relay system to Readwise or export it depending on my whim of the moment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without describing other content sources, I hope you get the idea. Readwise allows the collection of highlights and notes from many different content sources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

AI Chat within Readwise<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, like many other digital tools, Readwise has added AI. This makes sense as the AI can be used to chat with all of the content or if you choose certain designated content that has been accumulated. The AI is easy to use, similar to other AI chats, and is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4o model. If you are a Readwise user you may not have noticed this recent addition (see the red square enclosing the small word chat at the top of the following image). I have also used a red box to call your attention to import. I will get to an important import issue at another point, but wanted to make certain you see how to get to the import options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Selecting chat will bring you to the following page. Here you find the typical request for a prompt and some suggestions. The suggestions will change as you make use of this feature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As an example, I entered a prompt related to a recent topic I have been exploring. I don\u2019t generate my posts using AI, but I sometimes ask for something written in a format I might use as a model. Within the content the AI generated, you will see link (blue color). Selecting a link will show the highlight or note within Readwise that was used to encourage a that part of what the AI wrote (the second of the two images appearing below). You can get the full set of content stored on Readwise from the displayed snippet of text by selecting the snippet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you are a Readwise user, I assume you can easily explore the AI chat just following the simple process I have outlined. This is not intended to be a full Readwise tutorial, but many can be found by searching online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One additional comment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of what I write is not based on books, but rather on journal articles. I am an academic and this is typical of how we work. We read articles from many journals and for the last 10+ years I have read nearly entirely from pdfs of journal articles. This is what I can access through my university library and more suited to my work that even getting up from my desk and walking across my office to pull a journal off a shelf. I don\u2019t want to highlight on paper because I want highlights and notes in a digital format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could have included the highlights from the hundreds of journal articles I had read in Readwise to create a massive collection of content I could explore via chat. However, I have not used a pdf reader that generates highlights in Readwise if I try to import the pdfs. This appears to be a common problem as I have explored this issue online. I will first note that you can highlight pdfs within the Readwise\/Reader environment, but this has not been part of my workflow. I have found a way to fix the problem which I will describe here, but it is unlikely I will now import one by one my large collection of highlighted and annotated pdfs to Readwise. I will explain the hack I have discovered for others who may want to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You should recall at the beginning of this post I showed the import link for Readwise. This link will bring up the many import options. I automatically import from Reader and Kindle. There is an option to import from pdfs. It is a one pdf at a time approach and requires that the pdfs with the highlights have been stored in the correct format. The import options are shown below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I have multiple tools to highlight and annotate pdfs. Most recently, I have used Bookends<\/a> and Highlights<\/a>. Both are software for the Apple environment and work great on an iPad with an Apple Pencil. Unfortunately, the storage format is not acceptable to Readwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, I found that I can open my highlighted and annotated pdfs in Preview which is the universal Mac tool for opening many different data files. It turns out you can export from Preview in multiple PDF formats and the first one I tried created a file that would be read by Readwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So, there is a way for those frustrated with the specific demands of Readwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Readwise if a powerful tool that stores the highlights and notes that have been added to a wide variety of content sources (e.g., web pages, Kindle books, Apple books. pdfs). Recently, an AI chat capability has been added to Readwise and can be used to interact with the content stored by Readwise. Because the quantity of this content is immense and represents what a user has found interesting or useful, being able to ask questions of this content offers very interesting possibilities. The AI chat capability is easy to explore and may even represent a selling point for those considering paying the subscription to use Readwise and Readwise Reader. <\/p>\n

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 How do most Readwise users use the service? Is it the central location in which you suck in the notes and highlights from the multiple tools you use to read the multiple categories of content you consume to review and work with that content or is it a relay station between these sources and the … Continue reading AI in Readwise<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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