Moving flashcards between apps: CSV and Anki text files

What a flashcard file looks like

A flashcard export is just a table saved as text. Each line is one card, and a separator character splits the line into columns: front, back, and sometimes tags.

CSV stands for comma-separated values, but in practice “CSV” files also use semicolons or tabs. A tab-separated file is often called TSV and frequently ends in .txt or .tsv. A minimal example with a semicolon as separator looks like the lines below. The first line is an optional header; many apps recognize common column names like Front and Back and skip that line instead of turning it into a card.

• Front;Back
• the dog;der Hund
• to run;laufen
• It’s raining.;Es regnet.

Separators, quotes and line breaks

Problems start when the content itself contains the separator. “to take, took, taken” has two commas, so in a comma-separated file it would be split into three columns. The standard solution is quoting: wrap the field in double quotes, and write a double quote inside a quoted field as two double quotes.

• Tabs are the safest separator for vocabulary, because they almost never appear inside a word or sentence.
• Semicolons are a good second choice for language cards; commas are the most likely to appear inside content.
• Keep it to one card per line unless the field is properly quoted.

Encoding: why umlauts turn into strange characters

Text files store characters as bytes, and the encoding defines how. Today’s standard is UTF-8, which covers every language, from ä and ñ to Japanese and Arabic. If a file was saved in an older encoding such as Windows-1252 and opened as UTF-8 (or the other way around), “Mädchen” can turn into something like “Mädchen”.

When you create a CSV in a spreadsheet, choose the UTF-8 option if there is one. Recent versions of Excel offer “CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited)” as a separate format from plain “CSV”. Also note that Excel with German regional settings uses semicolons instead of commas in CSV files, which is fine as long as the importing app recognizes the separator.

Exporting plain text from Anki

Anki can export notes as a tab-separated text file. In the desktop version, go to File > Export, pick the deck you want, and choose “Notes in Plain Text” as the format. Depending on your version you will see options such as including HTML and media references or including tags.

Some things to know about this format:

• It exports note fields as text. Images and audio files are not included; at most you get references to them, like [sound:word.mp3].
• Review history and scheduling are not part of a plain text export. In the new app, the cards start as new.
• If your notes have more than two fields (for example word, translation, example sentence), each field becomes its own column.
• Unchecking the HTML option gives cleaner text if your cards contain formatting.

Common pitfalls and how to fix them

Most failed imports come down to a handful of causes. If the result looks wrong, check these first.

Importing and exporting with Cardfox

Cardfox, a vocabulary flashcard app for iPhone and iPad, can import and export cards as CSV or Anki text files. That means you can bring in a list you prepared in a spreadsheet or exported from Anki, and take your cards with you as a plain file at any time.

After importing, Cardfox schedules the cards with FSRS, a modern spaced repetition algorithm, so they come back just before you would forget them. Because plain text files don’t carry review history, imported cards start fresh there, as they would in any other app.

Bottom line

Two columns, a tab or semicolon as separator, UTF-8 encoding and quotes around anything tricky: that format moves between almost any flashcard tools. Keep an export of your decks now and then, and your work never depends on a single app. If you’re looking for a place to study those cards with spaced repetition, Cardfox reads exactly these files.