How to turn a textbook chapter into a video

A textbook chapter is built to be complete. It defines every term, works every example, and adds the side boxes and end-of-chapter problems on top. That's good for a reference and hard on a student with an exam next week. A short video of the chapter does the opposite: it gives you the main line of the argument, so when you go back to the text you know where each page fits.

Here's how to make one yourself, where generators help, and how to split a chapter so the result is actually worth rewatching.

Start by mapping the chapter

Before any recording, spend ten minutes on the structure. Read the chapter title, the section headings, the learning objectives if the book lists them, and the summary at the end. Most textbooks tell you what matters; the summary is often a near-ready outline for the video.

Then decide how many videos the chapter needs. A typical chapter holds several distinct ideas. At about 150 spoken words per minute, a two-minute video carries around 300 words of explanation, which is enough for one idea explained well, maybe two. So a chapter with five sections is often five short videos rather than one long one. Short videos are also easier to rewatch: you'll come back to "how the Krebs cycle produces ATP", not to "Chapter 9, minutes 6 to 14".

Option 1: Script it and record it yourself

For each section, write a teach-back: explain the idea from memory, in plain sentences, as if to a classmate. Then check it against the book and fix what you got wrong.
Keep the book's worked example if there is one. One example, worked step by step, teaches more than three definitions.
Plan one scene per idea. Copy or redraw the key diagram from the book; redrawing it yourself is good practice anyway.
Record. A phone filming paper while you draw and talk works fine. So does narrating over a few slides and exporting from PowerPoint or Keynote, or a screen recorder on a tablet.

The good: writing the script is one of the better ways to learn the material, and you choose exactly what to emphasise. The bad: it takes hours per chapter, and most students don't have hours per chapter. Save it for the chapters you find hardest.

Option 2: Find an existing video

For standard topics in big courses, someone has probably made a good video already. It's worth a search before making your own. The catch is fit: it won't use your book's notation, it may cover a different scope, and for upper-level or niche courses there often isn't one at all. When the lecture, the textbook and the video all use different symbols for the same thing, that's its own source of confusion.

Option 3: Generate it from the pages

A generator reads the chapter and makes the video for you. Because it works from your actual pages, it uses your book's terms, notation and examples, which is the main advantage over a random video on the topic. Your job becomes checking it, and watching an explanation critically is itself decent revision.

How Rekka does it

Open the chat at rekkaai.com/app, attach the chapter and send it. You don't need a PDF. Phone photos of the textbook pages work, as does a scanned PDF or the digital textbook file if you have one.

Rekka reads what's on the pages, including diagrams, tables and equations, and writes the script from them. It then draws the explanation scene by scene in a whiteboard, chalkboard or crayon style while an AI voice narrates. The finished mp4 appears in the chat. You can download it or share it with a public link, in landscape, square or portrait.

With no message, the video covers everything you attached. To make one video per section, attach the chapter and say which part you want: "just section 9.2", "focus on the worked example on page 4", "explain it for someone who missed the lecture". You can also ask for the narration in another language, which helps if you study in a language that isn't your first.

You can ask questions about the chapter in the chat before making anything. "What are the main ideas in this chapter?" or "how should I split this into short videos?" costs no credits, and the answer is a quick plan for which videos to make.

The limits:

Up to 30 pages per message. For a longer book, send the chapter you need, not the whole thing.
One credit makes one video of about 100 seconds, and new accounts get one free credit. On the free plan, a video is one chapter of about 100 seconds summarising what you attached. Paid plans can make longer, multi-chapter videos, and you see the length and credit cost and confirm before it's made.

The textbook to video page has more on this.

Tips for photographing textbook pages

Lay the book flat and shoot straight down, one page per photo. Curved pages near the spine are where text gets hard to read.
Use daylight or a bright lamp and keep your shadow off the page.
Include the figures. If a diagram sits on the facing page, photograph that page too.
Skip the end-of-chapter problems unless you want them explained. They pull the video toward practice questions and away from the main explanation.

Using the videos to study

Watch the video for a section before reading it. The text then reads as detail on an outline you already have. After reading, close the book and try to explain the section out loud without the video. Whatever you can't explain is what to reread. Then do the problems, which no video replaces.