What Bento reads out of a syllabus

You meant to spend week one getting a plan together.

Instead you have a downloads folder full of syllabus PDFs. Each one is dozens of pages. Dates are buried in paragraphs. Grading rules are on page 6, the exam is on page 12, and class meetings are scattered through the rest.

The week you meant to use to get organized is the week that disappears.

Drop a syllabus on a class and the term appears

In Bento you add a class, then drop its syllabus PDF onto it.

The AI reads the syllabus and fills the planner for you:

• Instructor name and office hours go on the class.
• The grading scheme and its weights go into Marks for that class.
• Every class meeting lands on the calendar from the first day through exam week.
• Chapters and sections become readings.
• Assignments, quizzes and exams appear in the tray with due dates.

If the syllabus says "TBD" or does not give a date, it stays that way in Bento until you know more. If something lands on the wrong day or with the wrong weight, you click in and change it. The AI never locks anything in.

You go from a stack of PDFs to a calendar, a tray and a marks breakdown that you can scan in one glance.

What the AI does, and what you control

Reading a syllabus is an AI feature in Bento.

It runs only when you ask it to. Dropping the PDF on the class is the whole job. The schedule, the readings and the grading scheme fill in from what it finds, and you get your week back.

Anything it adds is regular planner data. You can edit, delete or move it like anything you typed yourself. A date is one click to change. A weight is one click to adjust. A reading you do not need is one click to remove.

If the syllabus changes midterm, you can run it again or update the pieces by hand. The AI never overwrites what you already have without being asked.

You can read more about how this works on the page about how the AI is used.

What nobody else puts in one place

Most syllabus tools on the market are web or phone apps. They ask you to make an account, then push dates into Google Calendar.

Bento is different in four concrete ways:

• It is a desktop app for Mac and Windows.
• It keeps your planner on your own computer, not on our servers.
• It reads the grading scheme from the syllabus, not only the dates.
• It builds study guides from your own notes.

Free planner first, AI when you are ready

Bento is a full planner with the AI features off. You can download it free from the home page, no account and no card.

When you want the AI to read a syllabus, you turn those features on:

• On a subscription, the AI is included. There is nothing extra to set up.
• On a one-time License, you add your own API key from Anthropic or OpenAI in Settings.

The free download does not read a syllabus until you choose one of those and turn the AI on.

One place to start this term

You do not need to sort every detail before you begin.

Download the free planner from the home page, add one class, and when you are ready to hand it a syllabus, turn the AI on and drop the PDF in.