How to Make Anki Cards Super Fast

How to Make Anki Cards Super Fast

Sometimes making Anki cards can take far too long. This article is all about making Anki Cards Faster.

If you want to spend more time actually doing your cards than making them then you should follow what I’m about to say.

Below I have listed some features that are built into Anki for this and some add-ons that will take your card-making to the next level. For a complete list of add-ons, you can check out my list of the 10 best Anki add-ons that make Anki an absolute joy to use.

Let’s get into how to make Anki Cards Faster.

1. Use Keyboard Shortcuts for Fast Anki Cards

When you create Anki Cards there are some specific keyboard shortcuts that make the card creation process much faster. It takes a bit to get used to using these but the speed increase is massive.

I have created a table of all of the Anki cards that are good for making cards quickly below.

I would recommend changing the occluded image shortcut that comes with image occlusion enhanced. In my opinion, It’s very inconvenient. Use Ctrl/Cmd + F instead.

To change the occluded image shortcut go to tools –> add-ons –> Image Occlusion enhanced –> Click config –> Click Change Hotkey.

Alternatively, if you want to change even more shortcuts, you can set your own Anki keyboard shortcuts using the Customize Keyboard Shortcuts add-on. This can be installed using code 24411424.

2. Use Sticky Fields

Anki has a feature that will save the front side of the card when you are creating them so you don’t have to write out or paste in the same image every time.

In the card creation menu, go to the fields tab and click remember last input when adding. With this, you can copy and paste an image or text and then quickly make multiple cards about It without having to repaste the image or text each time.

Anki will tell you that the next card is a duplicate but you can ignore this. I prefer to use the frozen fields plugin for this purpose but unfortunately, Frozen Fields does not seem to be updated for newer Anki versions at the time of this post.

You used to need to use Frozen Fields to gain this benefit but now this feature is built right into Anki (you should use frozen fields if you are on an older version of Anki).

3. Use Cloze Cards

If you want fast card creation make sure to heavily utilize close cards. You can quickly copy and paste a sentence and then use the shortcut Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + C to hide a part of it. This allows you to occlude parts of the text that get revealed as the answer.

That’s it for what you can do with Anki’s default capabilities. In order to really speed up card creation we are going to need some add-ons. Many of these add-ons are what I consider to be the best add-ons for Anki in general but many of these also help with creating cards faster.

I also wrote a quick guide on how to install Anki add-ons if you don’t know how to do this.

With that out of the way, let’s get into using one of my favorite Anki add-ons, Image Occlusion Enhanced.

4. Use Occluded Images Add-on

One of the easier ways to speed up your creation of Anki cards is to use Image Occlusion Enhanced. Image Occlusion Enhanced allows you to paste in an image and then cover parts of it. These occluded parts are then removed when you flip the card over, revealing the answer.

Pasting in an image or diagram is much faster than trying to express it in words or sentences. You can use Win+Shift+S on Windows or Shift, Command, and 4 on Mac to quickly take a screenshot and then click the image occlusion button in the card creation menu (or use Ctrl+Shift+O).

Your occluded image cards will even work on the Anki mobile app automatically!

5. Use The Always on Top Add-on

Always on Top will forever be one of my favourite Anki card creation tools because it solves a very annoying issue. This add-on will stop you from needing to tab back and forth when creating Anki cards, saving valuable time.

This is done by always keeping Anki as your top window. This way you can have Anki overtop of the text you are reading and copy and paste information back and forth.

To enable this go to tools –> check the always-on-top box

6. Use ChatGPT to Generate and Import Cards

The last solution to quickly creating Anki cards is a new one. You can use ChatGPT to generate tons of Anki cards very quickly and the results of this are quite impressive, to say the least. Heres what you need to do.

1. Paste in some text from your learning materials
2. Ask ChatGPT to create flashcards using a prompt for Anki Cards

I have an entire article that goes in-depth on how you can create Anki cards using ChatGPT. This includes specific prompts for creating cloze cards, as well as mass amounts of basic cards that can be imported using Anki’s card import feature.

However, especially with this ChatGPT technique, be careful with how many cards you make.

Be Careful with how many cards you make

Lastly, it is essential to note that making too many Anki cards too fast can be a bit of a double-edged sword when it comes to saving time. Every card you make is a time commitment. Just because you can now make tons of Anki cards in very little time, it doesn’t mean that you should be.

This could lose you time quite easily if you create too many cards.

You still need to prioritize and make as few cards as possible. Anki is best used in a supplementary way rather than as a core part of your studying process. This is because there are simply far better ways to learn out there than doing hundreds of flashcards every week.

Essentially, Anki helps with what slips through the cracks but reviewing mass amounts of cards is a relatively inefficient way to study information. But, quickly creating the minimum cards needed is useful and that is why I wrote this article. Just make sure you don’t wrongly apply the information here.

I wrote an entire article on Anki’s limitations and when we should switch to other studying techniques if you are interested in this specific part of Anki.

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Sean

Hello, my name is Sean and I am currently a Cognitive Science student at a Canadian University. My passion for learning has led me to research the ways in which we can optimize our learning as students. I believe that learning should be an enjoyable and fulfilling experience. I am constantly seeking out new ways to make the most out of my learning at university and I write about those things here.

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