Flashcard Maker

How our flashcard maker works

A flashcard has a question or term on one side and the answer on the other. The idea is to look at the front, try to recall the back, then check yourself. Our flashcard maker builds the cards from a list you provide, so you spend your time learning rather than formatting.

1. You type or paste your cards

Put one card on each line, with the front and back separated by a vertical bar: Capital of France | Paris. Only the first bar on a line counts, so your answer can contain bars, commas or anything else. To put a line break inside a card, type \n. If your list lives in a spreadsheet, copy two columns and paste them in: the tab between the columns is recognised automatically. You can also switch the separator to a comma or a semicolon.

The maker tells you how many cards it found and which lines it skipped, for example a line with no separator or an empty side. It can remove cards that repeat a front, and it can shuffle the order.

2. You choose how the cards look

Pick an index-card, classic, square or portrait shape, then a theme. You can change the front and back colors, the font, the border and the corner radius, and decide whether to show the deck title, a “Front/Back” label and a card number. Text is shrunk to fit its card automatically, and you can force one text size across the whole deck if you prefer a uniform look. Either side can also be a picture.

3. The deck is built in your browser

When you press Make flashcards, your cards appear straight away. Nothing is sent to the server unless you choose to save or share the deck, so a quick study set takes seconds and stays on your device.

4. You use the cards

Click a card to flip it. From there you can study the deck, take a quiz, print or download the cards, export them to another app, or save the deck to share.

Study mode and quizzes

Study mode

Study mode shows one card at a time. Try to recall the answer, flip the card, then press I know it or Still learning. You can use the keyboard: Space flips the card, the right arrow means you know it, and the left arrow means you are still learning. A card you miss does not disappear. It returns after a few other cards, so you meet it again while it is still fresh. At the end of a round you see exactly which cards needed another look, and you can review just those.

The maker remembers which cards you marked as known, but only in the browser you used. You can start with either the front or the back, which is handy for practising both directions, such as word to meaning and meaning to word.

Quiz mode

The quiz turns your deck into multiple-choice questions. Each question shows one side of a card with four answers: the right one and up to three taken from your other cards. You get instant feedback, a final score, and a list of the cards you missed, with a button to retry only those. A quiz needs at least two cards.

Why active recall works

Flashcards work because they make you retrieve an answer from memory instead of just rereading it. A widely cited 2013 review of study techniques by John Dunlosky and colleagues, published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, rated practice testing and spreading study sessions over time as two of the most useful methods among those it examined. Note that our repeat queue is a simple “see it again soon” system, not a full spaced-repetition algorithm. For long-term study, review your deck on several different days.

Printing flashcards that line up

Choose A4 or US Letter and place 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 or 10 cards on each page. Cards have thin dashed lines to cut along.

• Double-sided: the maker prints a page of fronts, then a page of backs. The back pages are mirrored so every back lands behind its own front. In your printer settings, choose two-sided printing and flip on the long edge.
• Fold-over: each card is printed with its front and back side by side. Cut it out and fold it in half.

The PDF download uses exactly the same layout as printing. Print one test page first to check that your printer lines up the two sides. You can also save any single card, front or back, as a PNG image, and print a plain study sheet that lists every card in a table.

Because the PDF pages are saved as images, the exact layout is preserved, but the text inside the PDF cannot be selected or copied.

Sharing and using your deck elsewhere

Press Save deck to get a public link and a private edit link. Anyone with the public link can study, quiz and print the deck, but only the edit link can change it. If you open someone else’s deck and save it, you get your own copy.

You can also export the deck as a CSV file or a tab-separated text file, with the front in the first column and the back in the second. Many flashcard apps and spreadsheet programs, including Anki, can import tab-separated text, so your deck is never locked in.

Tips for better flashcards

• One idea per card. A card that asks for one fact is easy to mark right or wrong honestly.
• Keep it short. Short fronts and backs are easier to recall and fit larger on the card.
• Use your own words. Rewriting a definition yourself helps you understand it.
• Add a picture when it helps. Diagrams, maps and objects can be clearer than words.
• Study in both directions. Use the “Start with” option to see the back first.
• Little and often. Short sessions across several days beat one long session.

About this flashcard maker

What we store, and for how long

• If you only make, study and print cards: your deck stays in your browser and is not saved on our server.
• If you save a deck: the title, cards and design are stored under a random public link. Guest decks are removed automatically after [180] days without changes. Decks owned by logged-in users are kept.
• In your browser: the key that lets you edit a saved deck, and which cards you marked as known, are kept in your browser’s local storage on your device.

Shared deck pages are set not to appear in search results.

Honest limits

A deck can have up to [200] cards. Pictures can only be placed in PDF and PNG files when the image’s host allows it; pictures from your own site always work. Study progress is not synced between devices. We’d rather you know now than find out the night before an exam.