Import Passages from a PDF with AI
Learn how to import reading passages from a PDF, photo, CSV, or pasted text, review them before they land in your library, and print clean paper copies with numbered word counts.
Most reading passages you already own live in a PDF: a benchmark packet, a curriculum unit, a set of leveled texts a colleague sent you. The Import tab on New Passage reads that file with AI, finds each passage inside it, and turns them into separate passages in your library — no copying and pasting one text at a time. The same dropzone also takes a photo of a page, a CSV, or text you paste from another document.
Open Import
- Go to Passages.
- Click the arrow next to New Passage.
- Choose Import passages.
You can also click New Passage and switch to the Import tab. Both land on the same page.
Set the defaults and drop a file
Grade and language are applied to every passage the AI finds in a PDF, photo, or pasted text, so set them before you upload. You can still change them per passage in the next step. CSV rows keep the grade and language in the file.
- Choose a Grade.
- Choose a Language.
- Drop a PDF, photo, CSV, or pasted text onto the upload area, or click it to browse.
Files up to 10MB are supported.
Review before you import
Nothing is added to your library until you confirm. The importer lists every passage it detected, and selecting one in the left column shows the full extracted text on the right.
- Click through each detected passage and read the extracted text.
- Uncheck Include in import for anything you do not want, or use Select all and Clear.
- Override the grade, language, or tags on any individual passage.
- Passages already in your library start unchecked and are marked Already in your library. Repeated rows in the same file are marked the same way. You can still check them if you want a second copy.
- Optionally choose an existing collection, or type a new collection name and click Create.
- Click Import.
Grouping the import into a collection is worth the extra few seconds. A packet of benchmark texts stays together as "Grade 3 Benchmark" instead of scattering into the general library.
Imported passages behave like any other passage. You can edit the text, host a live session, add them to more collections, or assess them 1:1.
AI extraction is a starting point, not a final answer
The AI splits the document, guesses titles, and cleans up layout artifacts such as page headers and line-break hyphenation. It is good, not perfect. Scanned or image-only PDFs, multi-column layouts, and heavy footnotes are the usual trouble spots.
Read the extracted text in the review step, and open the passage afterwards if something looks off. Word counts drive WCPM, so a stray page number or a dropped sentence changes a student's score.
Prefer paper? Print any passage
Digital passages still print. If you assess with a clipboard and a stopwatch, or you want a hard copy in a student's folder, use the print view instead of printing the browser page.
- Open the passage card action menu.
- Choose Print.
- Review the preview, then click Print passage.
The printable copy is built for scoring by hand:
- Running word counts in both margins — the number at the start and end of each line, so you can total words read without counting back through the paragraph.
- A total reading unit count at the top, matching what the app uses for WCPM.
- Fields for student name, teacher name, date and time, WCPM, and accuracy, with your teacher name already filled in.
- Generous line spacing for marking errors, self-corrections, and the one-minute stop line.
- Clean typography with no app chrome, so the page looks like an assessment form rather than a screenshot.
Chinese passages count each character as a reading unit instead of splitting on spaces, so the margin numbers and the WCPM they feed stay meaningful. English, Spanish, and French passages count words.
Next tutorial
Once a set of passages is ready, hand it to a colleague: Share a passage collection with colleagues.