Drop a lecture PDF, slide export, or textbook chapter and download a .apkg deck. 2anki reads the text into question-and-answer cards, falls back to image cards when a page has no text, and can write cards with AI when the PDF is dense.
1. Drop your file
Notion export, PDF, Word, Markdown, or a Quizlet export.
2. 2anki builds your deck
Usually a few seconds. Bigger files take a minute.
3. Open it in Anki
Double-click the .apkg file. Your cards are ready to study.
Cloze deletions stay clickable
{{c1::...}} becomes a real Anki cloze card, not plain text.
Images render in the card
Embedded images come across and display on the front or back.
Tags carry over
Strikethrough in Notion or a tag column in CSV attaches to every card in the deck.
Correct note types
Basic, Cloze, and front/back map to the right Anki note type so import is clean.
No junk in your cards
No empty backs, no stray #, *, or $ characters left over from your notes.
When a PDF carries a text layer, 2anki reads it and pairs the pages into cards — the text on one page becomes the front, the next page becomes the back. You get editable text cards you can fix in Anki in seconds, not flattened images.
A photo scan with no text layer can't be read as text. When there's no usable text, 2anki falls back to image cards: each page is paired with the next as a front-and-back image, so you still get a reviewable deck. For a true photo scan, add a text layer with OCR in macOS Preview or Adobe Acrobat first, then upload for text cards.
Yes. When a chapter is wall-to-wall prose with no clean front/back split, the AI flashcard mode reads the content and writes question-and-answer cards for you. They land as basic notes you can edit, tag, and move into a subdeck.
Yes. Large PDFs work, though big files take longer and create large decks. Free accounts handle everyday lecture and chapter PDFs; paid plans lift the size limit. Uploading one chapter at a time keeps decks easier to review.
Equations stored as images stay as images. Equations stored as text need MathJax enabled in your Anki card template to render. In image mode, the full page comes across as an image so diagrams stay intact.