Find something to study
The search box on the home page takes a plain description of what you want to learn and returns a ranked path. Reading any existing path is free signed out. Building a brand-new one signed out works once per device per day; after that it asks you to sign in, and a signed-in account gets three new builds a day. Free resources sit above paid ones. On a generated path, we open every link first and only keep the ones that actually work; hand-written paths are checked by hand when they are put together.
The hand-written paths are built as courses rather than reading lists. Each one is split into units, and every unit says what it is for and what you should be able to do by the end of it, so you can tell whether to move on instead of guessing. Certification paths carry the exam domains as the vendor publishes them, weightings included, with a link to the vendor page so you can check the scope yourself.
You do not know where to start
Search the subject. Save the path and its steps become a checklist on your dashboard, and saving also creates the subject for you. You can keep 3 paths active at a time; finishing one frees the slot and keeps the path, so you never have to delete something you completed to start the next.
You already have a class or a book
Skip the search entirely. Make a subject on the dashboard, open a note, and go straight to step 3. You can keep 4 subjects, and it makes no difference whether you typed the name in yourself or saved a path that made one for you.
A path is a reading order, not a deck
Saving a path gives you resources in a sensible order, a subject to file them under, and one note listing the steps so there is somewhere to write from the start. It does not make any flashcards or quiz questions, and neither does that note. Nothing does that on its own: cards come from what you write in a note, or from material you import into one. That is the same in both columns above, so a subject you made yourself can do everything a subject that came from a path can.
Which means the dashboard looks emptier without a path, and that is all it means. Flashcards appear for either kind of subject the moment a note holds five vocab pairs; review, quizzes, the speed run and matching follow at ten.
Saving a path for a subject you already have will not give you a second copy of it. You get taken to the one you saved before, with your notes and boxes where you left them. Typing a subject name you are already using works the same way, and tells you which one you have.
Run it yourself, in the browser
A few hand-written paths give you something to work in rather than another link to open: a database on the SQL path, a Linux machine on four of the certification paths. Save the path and they open on your dashboard, beside the rest of the steps. Both run inside your own browser, and nothing you type into either one is sent to us or stored anywhere.
A database on the page
The SQL path seeds a small library schema into a real SQLite database and hands you an editor over it. Write a join, run it with Ctrl/Cmd + Enter, read the rows that come back. Clear it and build your own tables once the example has served its purpose.
A Linux machine you boot
The A+, Linux+, Security+ and Network+ paths each carry a lab that starts a real Linux kernel in your browser. You get a prompt and you type into it, and Verify tells you what is still outstanding. Press Start and it downloads about 7 MB, which is worth knowing on mobile data.
Verify tells you what is missing
On a lab, Verify reads what the machine actually printed and names the part you have not done yet. It is not a score and nothing is spent, so you can run it as often as you want. Pass or miss, it then shows how the exam usually words that objective, which is the part that carries into the test.
Passing a lab does not tick the project's own checklist. Running one correct command and finishing the exercise are two different claims.
Write it down, or bring it in
Notes are plain text. There is no separate flashcard form and no button to press. Write Vocab: and your word, then Def: and what it means. The editor finds the pair and makes the card as you write.
Vocab: Photosynthesis
Def: The process by which plants turn sunlight into energy.
Photosynthesis: The process by which plants turn sunlight into energy.
One line with a colon or a dash does the same job. The word goes on the front of the card, the meaning on the back.
Slash menu (/)
Type / anywhere in the editor for headings, lists, a checklist, a quote, a code block, or a ready-made Vocab and Def pair.
Editor & formatting
Ctrl+S / ⌘S saves now, Ctrl+F / ⌘F find/replace, Ctrl+B / ⌘B & Ctrl+I / ⌘I bold/italic.Auto-saves as you type. Use the editor toolbar buttons for bold, italic, headings, and formatting.
Importing a file
PDF, DOCX, plain text, or markdown. Capped at 500,000 characters of text.
Saving a PDF
The note editor exports either the note itself or just its flashcards as a study sheet. It hands off to your browser's print dialog, so choose Save as PDF there.
Sharing & QR codes
Once a note holds ten vocab pairs, a Share button appears in the header. It creates a view-only practice link and a QR code you can scan with a phone camera. Anyone can practice your cards without an account, nobody can edit your note, and you can stop sharing anytime.
Streaks, points, and badges
All computed from your own review history, never invented. Your streak starts on your very first review (🔥 1 day streak); points add one per review and twenty per card you master to box 4; badges appear on the dashboard as you earn them. The activity heatmap tracks your 70-day review history. The banner at the top of the dashboard carries a bar for the number that actually counts: how many of your own cards have reached box 4, out of the deck for the subject you are on.
Taking your notes with you
Settings has a "Download my notes" button that hands you every note in your account as one markdown file. Your writing is yours; nothing here locks it in.
Switching subjects
The switcher sits in the top bar, beside your account. Picking a subject reloads the dashboard around it.Open the menu from the top right. The switcher is the first thing inside it. It appears once you have a second subject. Every subject runs its own boxes, set of five and 12-hour wait, so spending one does not touch another. Review stays on whichever subject you opened it with, and when that one has nothing ready it names the others rather than moving you to one.
AI auto-generation
Drafts a vocab pair for every term the material defines, aiming for at least 10, and a quiz question for every concept it supports. A source with more in it gives you more; a thin one can come back with as few as 5 pairs, which is enough for flashcards while the rest waits for 10. Up to 3 times per subject in each 7-day window.
Importing the same file twice does not spend a run. It stops before the generation and, for a PDF, tells you which pages you have not brought in yet.
A **Quiz:** block, with its options separated by pipes on the **A:** line, is understood by the editor and shows up in the note preview.
Five pairs starts flashcards, ten makes the deck
Cards do not appear one at a time. A note starts making flashcards the moment it holds five different vocab pairs, and becomes a full deck at ten, when everything in it converts at once: graded review, quizzes, the speed run and matching all open there.
Below five, nothing is created. Edit a note back under ten pairs and its quiz cards are removed again; under five, the flashcards go too.
Review, which is the only mode that counts
Every card sits in a box, and the box decides how long until you see it again. Review asks three things and nothing else: multiple-choice questions, matching boards where you drag terms onto their definitions, and ordering cards where you put a procedure back in sequence. All three mark themselves, so there is no deciding whether you got it right. A board is two or three cards on one screen and scores each pair on its own, so two right and one wrong moves two up and sends one back. Five cards come due at a time, a set every 12 hours, so a session is short on purpose.
There is nothing special about it. A card you have never seen is dealt onto a matching board or asked as a quiz like any other, and answering it right is what moves it to box 1. You delete a card from the note that made it, not from a review session.
Right moves a card up one box. Wrong sends it back to box 0 from wherever it was, which means it is due immediately and keeps coming back until you get it. The card you just missed is the one you need soonest.
A card from an import or an AI pass does not count toward your progress until you have answered it right twice and put the idea in your own words. Then it counts like any card you wrote.
Spaced repetition
A learning technique that incorporates increasing intervals of time between subsequent review of previously learned material.
Waiting now before the next look. Say how the review went.
How much is due at once
A set is five cards, quizzes and matching pairs together, coming twice a day. The next is ready exactly 12 hours after your last answer, so it lands at a time you can plan around. If you keep the site open, a small note tells you when it arrives.
Zen focus mode & shortcuts
Press Z or click Focus to toggle Zen mode, which dims surrounding controls and spotlights the card. On a quiz, A to D or 1 to 4 picks an option. A matching board works entirely from the keyboard: Tab to a term, Enter to pick it up, Tab to a definition and Enter to drop it, or Esc to put it back. Dragging does the same thing with a mouse.Left and Right move between the cards in the set.
Sound & haptics
Audio tones play on card flips, right answers, wrong answers, and session completion. On phones that support it, subtle vibrations give physical feedback as you move through cards (Android; iOS does not expose this to browsers yet).
Practice, which costs you nothing
Open the Quick study hub on your dashboard and pick a mode. None of these write to the box schedule.
Click or Space to flip. Term on front, from your own notes.
Multiple choice, options shuffled every time. 3 runs per subject in each 24-hour window.
Twelve rounds on a 60-second clock, mixing snap judgements, multiple choice and typing.
Eight terms and eight definitions face down on a board.
One term, two answers that read alike. Cards you have got wrong come up first.
Taking notes beside a video
When a step in one of your paths is a YouTube video, the dashboard offers to open it beside the editor.
Capture timestamp drops a link at your cursor for the second you are on. Click that link later and the player goes back to it. On a phone the two panes become a toggle.
Using Quad Encode as a mobile app
Quad Encode is built as a Progressive Web App (PWA). You can install it directly onto your phone without downloading anything from an app store.
Tap the share button at the bottom of Safari, then select "Add to Home Screen".
Tap the three-dot menu in the top right of Chrome, then select "Install app" or "Add to Home screen".
Ready to start studying?
Make your first subject, or search a topic and see what a path looks like before you sign up. Reading paths is free signed out, and each device gets one new path build a day.