What Academic Studio is

A workspace with an assistant built in

Academic Studio is a place to work on your project files with Claude, side by side.

• Your files are on the left, Claude is on the right
• Open a file and it opens as a tab in the right pane
• You can ask Claude to do the work, or do it yourself
• Under the hood it is VS Code — but set up to be simple, with Claude ready the moment it opens

Move through this tour with the → arrow keys, or the arrows at the bottom-right.

Getting around

The five areas of the screen

1. Activity Bar — icons on the far left switch what the side panel shows
2. Explorer — the files in your project folder
3. Main panel — where your files open and where Claude lives
4. Ask Claude — type your request here and press Enter
5. Status Bar — small readouts along the very bottom

The Activity Bar

The narrow strip of icons on the far left. Each one opens a different panel.

• 📄 Explorer — your files
• 🔍 Search — find text across every file
• 🧩 Extensions — add-ons that give new abilities
• ✳︎ Claude Code — the assistant
• ⚙️ Settings (bottom) — preferences and your account

Click an icon to show its panel; click it again to hide it and give yourself more room.

Menus and toolbars

The menus (File, Edit, View, Terminal, Help, Claude) have been trimmed to the essentials.

Toolbars are the small rows of buttons at the top of the editor. When you open a file, buttons that make sense for it appear — a Run button for Python, a Preview button for Quarto.

Arranging your editor

Files you open stack as tabs along the top of the editor — and you can arrange them to suit your work:

• Drag a tab left or right to reorder it
• Drag a tab to the edge of the editor to see two files side by side; the Split Editor button in the top-right toolbar does the same
• Drag a split tab back onto the others to merge them again

Handy for keeping a data file and a script, or a document and its preview, in view at once.

Settings, if you ever need them

Settings is where you can change text size, word wrap, and the like. Most people rarely open it.

The quickest way is the Command Palette: press F1 to bring up a search box that can run any command, then type “settings.”

Or simplest of all, ask Claude to change a setting for you.

The Terminal

A terminal is a place to type commands for your computer to run — installing a program or checking a result.

Open one with Terminal → New Terminal, then type the command and press Enter. Or, simplest of all, just ask Claude to run commands for you.

Working with your files

When you first open it

The first time you open Academic Studio you see a Start page. From here you can:

• Open Folder — choose the project you want to work on
• Run Setup — install tools and pick your profile
• Help — open the written guide

Claude opens automatically alongside it.

Open a folder, and your files appear

Everything in Academic Studio happens inside a project folder. Choose one with File → Open Folder, and its contents show up in the Explorer.

• Click a file to open it in the editor
• Your work saves automatically
• Your Claude conversation stays with the project

Viewing spreadsheets, PDFs, and data

You do not need Excel or a PDF reader — Academic Studio previews these files for you.

Spreadsheets, CSV data, PDFs, and Excel files all open in built-in viewers.

The Python libraries you get

Run Setup installs Python with the libraries most academic and professional work needs:

• pandas, NumPy — data and tables
• Matplotlib, seaborn, Plotly — charts and figures
• SciPy, SymPy — scientific and symbolic math
• scikit-learn — machine learning
• statsmodels — statistics and regression
• openpyxl, python-docx, python-pptx — read and write Excel, Word, and PowerPoint

You need not memorize these — ask Claude to “analyze this spreadsheet” and it uses the right ones.

Claude, your assistant

Claude is ready the moment you open the app

The panel on the right is Claude Code. Type what you want in plain English and press Enter.

The fastest way to work: tell Claude what you want — “summarize this data,” “make a slide deck from these notes,” “fix this error” — and let it do the work.

A paid Anthropic account is required. The first time, type /login to sign in.

Claude can read your files

Because Claude works inside your folder, it can open and read your files to answer questions — no copying and pasting.

It also works like a smart search over your documents: ask “which file mentions the 2023 budget?” and it finds the right one.

Claude can write and edit files

Ask Claude to create or change a file and it writes it for you, right there in your folder.

By default it shows you what it plans to do and waits for your OK — so you are always in control.

Run more than one Claude at once

You are not limited to a single conversation. Open more Claude Code sessions when you want to work on different things at the same time — one drafting a document while another analyzes data, say.

• Each session keeps its own conversation and history
• Switch between them like any other tab
• They all work in the same project folder

Start another with the new-session (+) button at the top of the Claude Code panel.

Claude’s installed skills

A skill is a ready-made ability Claude draws on by itself. Academic Studio bundles skills for producing real documents — ask for “a budget spreadsheet” or “a ten-slide deck” and you get an actual file:

• Excel spreadsheets — .xlsx
• Word documents — .docx
• PowerPoint decks — .pptx
• PDF files — create, fill, and combine
• Slide decks — themed reveal.js presentations
• Skill-creator — builds new skills for repeatable tasks

You never turn these on or call them by name — Claude picks the right skill on its own.

Skills, connectors, and plugins

Claude’s abilities can be extended in three ways:

• Skills teach Claude how to do specific tasks (fetching data, building documents, following a workflow)
• Connectors (MCP servers) give Claude access to external tools — databases, web services, APIs
• Plugins bundle skills and connectors into one-click installs

Browse and install:

• Anthropic plugins directory — official plugins
• Community plugins — contributed by the community

Academic Studio Packages

Academic Studio curates a small set of plugins with simplified install procedures — and some have features that work better here than on other Claude Code platforms.

• Install them from Help → Run Setup → Additional packages, checked on and added with a single click
• Run Setup handles the plugin, its skills, and any Python libraries the code needs, so everything just works
• See https://academic-studio.com for a description of each package

Setup and help

Run Setup: pick your profile, install the tools

Open it from Help → Run Setup. One screen lets you:

• Choose a profile (Students & Professionals, or Faculty) which turns on the right set of extensions
• Install supporting programs — Python, Node.js, Quarto — with a single click
• Install additional packages — Finance Data, Slide Deck, Voiceover Builder

You can reopen it any time to add tools or change extensions.

Where to get help

The Help menu has:

• Tour of Academic Studio — this tour
• Academic Studio Help — a written guide
• Run Setup — the setup screen
• Check for Updates — downloads a newer version when one is out

And of course, you can always just ask Claude.

You are ready

A few things to remember:

• Open a folder, and your files show on the left
• Type what you want to Claude on the right — it can read and write your files, run Python, and build documents
• Run Setup (in the Help menu) installs anything that is missing
• The Claude menu helps you manage skills, connectors, and permissions

Welcome to Academic Studio.

When in doubt, ask Claude — tell it what you want in plain words.

For help anytime, point Claude to https://academic-studio.com.