Creating Decks - Snap to Learn User Guide

Decks are how you organize your vocabulary in Snap to Learn. Think of each deck as a collection of words for a specific topic, textbook chapter, or lesson. There are several ways to create them, from scanning a page with your camera to importing a deck someone shared with you.

Your Deck Creation Options

To get started, tap the orange + button on the Decks screen. A menu slides up with four options:

Scan a page -- open your camera and photograph a page
Pick a photo -- choose a photo you already have
Create empty deck -- start a blank deck and add words yourself
Import deck by ID -- paste a link or ID that someone shared with you

Scanning a Page

This is the main way to build your vocabulary. Point your camera at any page that has words on it -- a textbook page, a worksheet, handwritten notes, a vocabulary list -- and Snap to Learn does the rest.

The AI is smart about understanding what it sees:

Bilingual vocabulary lists (like a French-German word list from a textbook) -- it recognizes both languages and extracts the word pairs directly.
Regular text (a paragraph from a book, an article, a passage) -- it picks out the important vocabulary, then looks up translations, definitions, and example sentences for each word.

For every word it extracts, you get:

Translation
Definition
Example sentences
Pronunciation
Part of speech

Choosing Where to Put Your Words

After you take the photo, you'll see a "Choose Deck" screen. Here you can either create a brand new deck for the scanned words or add them to a deck you already have.

Choose Deck screen with options to create a new deck or add to an existing one

While It Processes

Once you pick a deck, the scan uploads and the AI gets to work extracting your vocabulary. This happens in the background, so you can keep using the app. You'll get a notification when your words are ready.

Uploading Scan screen showing a French-German vocabulary page being processed

How Much Vocabulary Can You Build?

A typical textbook or workbook page contains around 40 words, so each scan goes a long way. Your 3 free scans alone can give you a starter vocabulary of around 120 words to practice.

With a subscription (80 scans per month), you could scan an entire textbook and build a vocabulary of 3,200+ words in a single month. You can also buy one-time scan packs of 20, 50, or 100 scans if you just need a boost. See Settings and Account for details.

Picking a Photo

This works exactly like scanning, but instead of opening the camera, it opens your photo library. Pick any image and the AI processes it the same way.

This is handy when you already snapped a photo of a worksheet earlier, or if a teacher sent you a picture of the vocabulary list. No need to re-photograph anything.

Creating an Empty Deck

Sometimes you want to build a deck from scratch -- maybe you're collecting words from a conversation, or you want to make a custom list for an upcoming test. Tap Create empty deck and you'll see a simple dialog where you name your deck. It automatically uses your active language pair.

Create New Deck dialog with a name field and the current language pair

Once the deck is created, you can add words to it manually, one at a time.

Importing a Deck by ID

If a classmate, teacher, or parent shared a deck with you, this is how you grab it. Tap Import deck by ID and paste the deck ID or the share link into the text field. Hit Import and the entire deck -- with all its words, translations, and example sentences -- loads right into your app.

Import Deck dialog with a field for entering a deck ID or share link

This is a great way for teachers to distribute vocabulary to a whole class, or for study partners to share what they've scanned.

Language Pairs

Every deck belongs to a language pair, like "English to German" or "German to French." This tells the app which language you're learning and which language you already know.

You can manage your language pairs by tapping the flag icon in the top-left corner of the Decks screen. From there you can:

See which language pair is currently active
Switch between language pairs by tapping one
Add a new language pair with the Add New Language Pair button

Language Pairs screen showing German to French as the active pair

If you're learning more than one language (say, French at school and Spanish on your own), just add both language pairs and switch between them whenever you need to. Your decks stay organized under the right pair automatically.