How hard is it to create a professional looking free infographic for your course? Very easy, at least since Google released their infographic tool for their NotebookLM product in mid December 2025… just as long as you have 2 minutes of free time along with a course outline and a Gmail account!

My 2-Minute Course Outline Infographic

Here’s the infographic NotebookLM created for me, based on my course outline, and the following customization Prompt:

Create a visual infographic summary of my course outline. Use a ‘Roadmap’ layout that starts at the top with the Course Objectives and snakes down the page through the key weekly themes. Ensure the grading breakdown is displayed in a clear sidebar or pie-chart style graphic. Keep the tone academic but engaging.

If you’d like to see a video of the process of creating a course outline infographic, check this one out, or skip to the middle of the post to see the same embedded video.

What to Watch Out For

As with all Generative AI tools you need to check the infographic content thoroughly to make sure that NotebookLM hasn’t made mistakes. The two most common errors I see in my course outline infographics are:

1. Spelling mistakes, especially when I’ve put a forward slash between two words. E.g. “couch/sofa”
2. Also when I ask for sometimes NotebookLM will display the weekly topic out of order, or will misspell the occasional word. 

I’ve highlighted both the spelling mistakes in the bottom right corner of the infographic, and the topics out of order below. Depending on the formatting you can sometimes import the infographic into Canva and overwrite textual errors there instead of trying to prompt NotebookLM to fix the errors. I’ve not had much success in prompting NotebookLM to fix spelling and formatting mistakes.

Please also note that if you have a free Google Account, that you will be limited to creating three infographics per day which will limit your ability to iterate through designs quickly.

Step by Step Course Infographic Tutorial

1. Go to NotebookLM and login if necessary using your Gmail credentials.
2. Create a new notebook.
3. Add your course outline as a source for your notebook. Don’t forget that your course outline needs to be either PDF or Google Docs formats. You can always convert your Word Document by exporting it to a PDF in Word.
4. Click on the pencil on the right side of the infographic button.
5. Select the orientation for your infographic. I’ve found that the Portrait format produces fewer formatting errors for roadmap infographics than the Landscape format.
6. Select the level of detail you want. The standard level of detail is my preference, but play around and see what would best suit you and your class.
7. Paste the prompt that best suits your class from above, and if you’d like, customize if for your class as well as the look and feel you’d like.
8. Now that you’ve created one version of an infographic for your course, play around with your NotebookLM prompt & settings to see if you can create an infographic that would better meet the needs of your students. 

Custom Prompts for Different Course Formats

To get the most out of NotebookLM’s “Guide” features (or any AI image generator), the secret is to ask for a structured layout rather than just a “pretty picture.” Since NotebookLM specializes in synthesizing your specific source material, you want a prompt that forces it to categorize that data into visual sections. Here are a few prompt templates you can use depending on the “vibe” of your course.

Option 1: The “Roadmap” (Best for Weekly Schedules)

Use this if your course outline is heavy on deadlines and chronological progression.

Prompt: Create a visual infographic summary of my course outline. Use a ‘Roadmap’ layout that starts at the top with the Course Objectives and snakes down the page through the key weekly themes. Highlight major milestone dates (Midterm, Final Project, Exams) with distinct icons. Ensure the grading breakdown is displayed in a clear sidebar or pie-chart style graphic. Keep the tone academic but engaging.

Option 2: The “Syllabus-at-a-Glance” (Best for Heavy Content)

Use this if your course has complex theories, many required materials, and strict policies.

Prompt: Generate a one-page ‘Syllabus-at-a-Glance’ infographic. Divide the space into four quadrants:

1. The Big Picture: Core learning outcomes.
2. The Toolkit: Required texts and software.
3. The Score: A breakdown of how grades are calculated.
4. The Rules: Key policies on attendance and late work. Use a clean, modern design with high contrast so it is easy to read at a glance.

Option 3: The “Concept Map” (Best for Theory-Based Courses)

Use this for subjects like Philosophy, Sociology, or Advanced Sciences where the connection between ideas matters most. 

Prompt: Based on the provided outline, create a concept-map style infographic. Place the ‘Central Course Thesis’ in the middle and create branching nodes for each major unit of study. Connect these units to the specific assignments that test them. Use a color-coded legend to differentiate between ‘Theoretical Knowledge’ and ‘Practical Skills’.

Pro-Tips for Better Results

• Specify the “Persona”: If you are a student, ask it to “highlight what I need to do to succeed.” If you are a professor, ask it to “make this inviting for new students.”
• Identify Tone: Add keywords like Minimalist, Corporate, Creative, or Vintage Textbook to match the subject matter.
• The “Rule of Three”: Ask the AI to identify the “Top 3 most important takeaways” from the outline and make them the largest text on the page.

I hope that you’ve found this tutorial useful!