org->anki

Anki decks are intelligent flashcards. “intelligent” here means they use a spaced repetition system to decide when cards should be reviewed: after you review a card, you rate how hard it was, and that information tells anki when to show it to you again.

There is a desktop application and mobile app, and the main pro of anki for me is the mobile app - got a second?? Time to review those cards.

Naturally we’re going to author said cards in emacs. Let’s say we wanted a deck for the NATO phonetic alphabet:

#+ANKI_DECK: org-phonetic-alphabet

* A
Alfa

* B
Bravo

* C
Charlie

# ....

Next, in the anki desktop application, install the anki-connect plugin (instructions in the readme there) and create a deck matching the ANKI_DECK value: org-phonetic-alphabet.

Then, with the power of org-anki, run org-anki-sync-all from the flashcard buffer, and BAM! Your deck will have the cards added. The org file will be edited to include a note it for mapping to the created card:

* A
:PROPERTIES:
:ANKI_NOTE_ID: 1755049519946
:END:
Alfa

And with an Ankiweb account you can sync these created decks right to your phone. nice