Writing with AI

Now we'll move to letting an assistant do the typing. Your notes are plain Markdown, which any AI writes well — once it knows about your pens, the tables and the page breaks. Write with AI is a screen of copy-ready prompts that teach ChatGPT, Claude or any other assistant to write a note in this app's exact format, using the pens of the folder you choose. You copy a prompt, add your material, and paste the answer into a note. The highlights, tables and headings arrive already in place.

Where it is

Three ways in:

• The Write with AI toolbar button (a sparkles icon), third from the left in the window's toolbar group.
• Help › Write with AI… (⌃⌘W).
• The command palette (⇧⌘P): type "write".

The header ①

Back to the note (a left chevron) returns to the note you were reading; it reads Library when no note was open.

The folder pop-up ②

The intro reads Let an assistant write the note, then paste it in. Under it: Write the prompts for the pens of [folder]. Pens differ by folder — a green pen may be "Formulas" in Accounting and "Vocabulary" in Spanish — so pick the folder the note will live in, and the prompts are written with that folder's pens. The pop-up starts on the folder of the note you came from.

Below it, the chips ③ list the pens the prompts will use, each tinted the pen's color: Formulas · formulas is the pen's name and, after the dot, the short name the AI must write inside the note. If the folder has no named pens the screen says so — Accounting II has no named pens yet, so the prompts ask for plain highlights — and points you to Pen settings (chapter 14).

The four prompts ④

Each card is a prompt you paste at the start of a conversation with an assistant. Copy prompt (a two-pages icon) at the top right of a card copies it; the button briefly reads Copied and the editor header shows Prompt copied.

1. The format guide — the general prompt, outlined in the accent color. This is the main one. It tells the assistant everything: headings, bold and italic, lists, checklists with due dates, tables, page breaks, links between notes, dates, and — most important — your pens: which pen marks what, and how to write a mark so it lands as a highlight. It ends with a short example note and asks the assistant to answer in a Markdown block you can copy.
2. Notes from a lecture, slides or a chapter — the format guide plus instructions to turn material you paste after it (a transcript, slides, a chapter) into notes in your style.
3. Clean up my rough notes — the guide plus instructions to tidy notes you typed in class without changing their meaning, adding the pens where they belong.
4. Study sheet: terms and formulas only — the guide plus instructions to extract just the terms and formulas, marked with the right pens so they become cards (chapter 9).

How to use one, step by step

1. Open Write with AI and choose the folder the note belongs to.
2. Click Copy prompt on a card.
3. Open your assistant, paste the prompt, then paste your material under it — the lecture transcript, the chapter, your rough notes.
4. Copy the assistant's answer (the Markdown block).
5. In Cocoa, make a new note in that folder and paste. The headings, lists, tables and highlights appear at once, because the note is the Markdown.

Why the pens matter

When the assistant writes a term with the Formulas pen, Cocoa's Collections lists it under Formulas and Study turns it into a card — exactly as if you had marked it by hand. That is why the prompts are written per folder: the assistant uses your pens, with your meaning.

What the format guide teaches

Without repeating the whole prompt: one heading per topic, the three emphases, bulleted and numbered lists, checklists (- [ ]) with due dates written as ! and a date, pipe tables with a header row, a page break line, links to other notes written as [[Its Title]] or [[Its Title|the words to show]], dates written in full, and your pens as marks around the words. It tells the assistant what not to do — no colors, no font sizes, nothing the file cannot carry — and to keep sentences short so that highlighted terms make good cards.

Maya's lecture becomes a note

After a two-hour lecture, Maya opens Write with AI, picks Accounting II, and copies Notes from a lecture, slides or a chapter. In her assistant she pastes the prompt and the transcript. The answer comes back as Markdown with headings for each topic, "return on equity" marked with the Formulas pen and six terms marked Definitions. She makes a new note, pastes, and presses ⌃⌘O: the outline shows all five topics. In the Library, the Definitions tile now reads Definitions · 6.

Summary

• Write with AI (toolbar sparkles, Help menu, ⌃⌘W) holds four copy-ready prompts written for one folder's pens.
• The format guide is the general prompt; the other three add lecture notes, cleanup and a study sheet.
• Copy a prompt, paste it and your material into any assistant, paste the answer into a new note.
• Highlights written by the assistant collect and become cards like your own.

Common mistakes

• Copying prompts for the wrong folder — the pens will not match, and the marks will show as unknown pens.
• Pasting the assistant's answer with its explanation around it — paste only the Markdown block.
• Asking for colors or font sizes — the file cannot carry them; use pens.

Best practices

• Set up pens first, then prompts.
• Keep one conversation per note so the assistant remembers the rules.
• Read the answer once before trusting it for study — the pens make the cards, so a wrongly marked term becomes a wrong card.

Keyboard shortcuts used

Related features to learn next

• Chapter 6, Highlighters and Pens — naming the pens the prompts use.
• Chapter 9, Study Mode and Flashcards — what the marks become.
• Chapter 5, Formatting Text — the same format, typed by hand.