PulseWriting your own notes
How to write your own notes during a meeting, with headings, bullet points and images.
You can write notes in your own words while the meeting is going on. What you write here is treated as material for the summary note produced afterwards, and influences what it concentrates on. Recording the reasoning behind a decision, or a concern you noticed at the time — things a transcript alone does not capture — makes the note far more useful when you read it back.
Where to write
When a meeting starts, an input field for notes appears on the note screen. It is blank, with no set format or headings, so write in whatever order things occur to you. Even a single line marking something you want to be sure appears in the minutes changes how it is treated in the summary.
A few lines of bulleted notes typed into the input field on the note screen, with an indicator at the bottom showing the transcript being captured.
Typos, abbreviations only your company would understand, and sentences you never finished are all interpreted from context when the summary is generated. Rather than tidying as you go, prioritise getting the key points down without breaking the flow of the meeting.
Using headings and formatting
If you want to specify the structure too, basic Markdown works.
| Purpose | How to type it |
|---|---|
| Heading | Type # followed by a space at the start of the line (for example # Agenda, # Decisions) |
| Bullet point | Type - or * at the start of the line |
| Checkbox | [] at the start of the line |
| Bold | **important** — type it like this |
| Italic | *note* — type it like this |
The same formatting is available from the keyboard.
- Bold: CMD + B
- Italic: CMD + I
- Underline: CMD + U
Headings and bullet points also influence the structure of the final summary note. Setting up headings such as “Agenda”, “Decisions” and “Next actions” at the start of a meeting makes a summary that follows those divisions more likely.
If you want the same structure for every meeting, setting up a template is more reliable than typing the headings out each time.
Examples of what to write
For notes during a live meeting, this level of detail is enough.
# Discussion pointswith “when the price change takes effect” underneath- “They want April; we are ready from June onwards”
[]with “resubmit the quote (by Friday this week)”
There is no need to write full sentences; they are turned into prose when the summary is generated.
Pasting images
Visual material such as a diagram shared on screen during the meeting, or a photo of a whiteboard, can go into your notes too. Drag and drop a JPEG or PNG into the note input field, or copy and paste it.
An image inserted partway through the body of a note, with text continuing before and after it.
Images are kept as material that fills in the context of the meeting. They are not converted into summary text, so adding a one-line description of the point of the diagram helps when you read it back later.
You do not have to write anything
Writing notes steers the summary, but it is not required. If you write nothing, the summary is produced from the transcript and the calendar event alone. For meetings where you want to concentrate on the conversation, or where you are doing most of the talking, it is fine to take no notes at all.
If you realise after the meeting that you want a particular point covered more fully, you can add to your notes and then regenerate. The steps for regenerating are in AI-enhanced notes.
If something is not working
- The note input field does not appear: check that a meeting note is open. You cannot write notes from the home screen.
- What I wrote is not reflected in the summary: after adding to your notes, the note has to be regenerated.
- I cannot paste an image: JPEG and PNG are supported. For other formats, save the image again in a supported format and then paste it.