Importing cards

What you can import

The importer lives in Create, under the Import button at the top right. Inside, you choose where the cards come from, File or Text: only one of the two. You don't pick the format, Medkit detects it and shows you before continuing.

Accepted formats are .medkit (a whole Medkit deck), .apkg (a deck exported from Anki), .csv, .tsv, .tab, and .json. A .txt works too: it's read as JSON or as a spreadsheet depending on what's inside. If you exported a deck when the format was called .med, that file still imports fine. The same applies on the Text tab: a comma- or tab-separated spreadsheet, or Medkit's JSON.

Each format is converted to the Medkit card type that matches it most closely, and from there you edit it like any other.

Importing a whole deck

A .medkit is a complete Medkit deck: it carries the six card types, the subdecks, the images, and the audio. It's the format for sharing a deck exactly as it is.

Upload it like any other file. Medkit recognizes it's a complete deck and, instead of asking which of your decks the cards go to, it asks where the new deck lands: at the top level or inside another deck of yours. The rest is the same preview as always, so you can review the cards and discard the ones you don't want before confirming. A subdeck left without any cards is not created.

From there it's your deck like any other: you can study it, edit it, move it, or make it public.

To generate a .medkit of one of your decks and share it, see Exporting a deck.

From Anki

Anki gives you two ways to export, and both open the same dialog. Through the menu: File › Export, then pick the deck under Include. Or straight from the deck: click the gear that appears to the right of its name and choose Export, which comes with that deck already selected.

Pick the Anki Deck Package (.apkg) format and check Include media, so the images travel with the deck. Then upload that .apkg on Medkit's import screen.

Basic cards become Front/Back, Cloze become Hidden words, and Image Occlusion decks become Rectangular zones cards, one per image, both the classic add-on's and newer Anki's. Subdecks come across with the same structure they had in Anki. Math formulas, in LaTeX or MathJax, are converted to Medkit's.

From CSV or TSV

A simple two-column spreadsheet works: the first is the front and the second the back. Each row becomes a Front/Back card. That's how you bring in lists of questions and answers or vocabulary from Excel, Google Sheets, or Quizlet.

If the first row holds the column names (front and back, or frente and reverso), Medkit recognises it and doesn't import it as a card. With more than two columns you pick which one goes on each side.

From a JSON file

The importer also accepts a .json file with cards. It's the format meant for building cards with the help of an AI: you ask it to return the cards in Medkit's format and paste or upload the result.

The JSON covers the three text types: Front/Back, Multiple choice, and Hidden words. For a deck with images and every type there's the .medkit. If the JSON came from a deck with subdecks, that structure travels too and gets rebuilt when you import it. If what you want is to get your cards out of Medkit, see Exporting a deck.

The three image types don't travel in a JSON, but the prompt takes them into account: when a topic is better understood with a figure, the AI notes it separately and the preview gathers them at the top, under Figure suggestions. Each one tells you which screenshot to take, which card type to build (Rectangular zones, Painted zones or Numbered tags) and what to cover, paint or number. If the figure only illustrates something already covered by a text card, it says so: there it's better to add it as the additional text image instead of making a new card.

Images and audio

Images from Basic, Cloze, and Image Occlusion cards are imported and uploaded automatically. The same image used in many cards is uploaded only once. Accepted formats are JPG, PNG, WebP, and GIF.

Audio comes along too. In Anki it's written as [sound:file.mp3] inside a field: on a Basic card, the one on the front becomes the front audio and the one on the back becomes the back audio, and on a Cloze it becomes the card's audio. If a field has several, the first one is used. The audio many language decks keep in a separate field becomes the back audio, so you hear it when you reveal. You can play it in the preview before importing.

Decks and subdecks

An Anki .apkg and a JSON exported from Medkit bring along the decks they had inside. If the file has Medicine with Anatomy and Physiology inside it, you end up with those three decks in Medkit and not with every card piled into one.

What you choose is where that deck lands: at the top level, or inside another deck of yours. The question shows up in the preview, above the cards.

When the file brings no decks, as happens with a CSV, the question is which deck of yours those cards go to. Cards made by an AI can come either way: if you gave it notes with chapters, the prompt asks for one deck per section, and if it's a single topic they all come together and you pick the deck.

Reviewing before you confirm

Before creating a single card, Medkit shows you a preview with everything it detected. Click any card to see it full size, just like in View cards: from there you move to the previous or next one with the arrow keys or by swiping, and a counter tells you which card you're on (for example, 5 / 25).

If there's a card you don't want to bring in, each one has a button to discard it, and you can restore it at any point before confirming. To discard several at once, use Select: check the ones you want and a bar at the bottom discards or restores them all together.

Hide discarded, under Filters, leaves only what will actually be imported in the grid.

If the file brings decks, the preview shows them grouped: each block carries the deck name, how many of its cards will be imported, and an All checkbox to include or leave out the whole deck. Tap the deck name to collapse its block and skip past its cards in one scroll. A collapsed deck still comes in: it's only a view, and the All checkbox works without opening it.

If a card is already in the target deck, or comes twice in the same file, it shows up marked as Duplicate and arrives discarded: to bring it in anyway, restore it like any other. The comparison looks at the card's text, so Rectangular zones cards stay out: there the answer is the pixels under each box and there is no text to compare.

It runs in the background, keep using Medkit

A large deck with images can take a while. As soon as you confirm, the import moves to the process queue and you can go study, create another card, or import another deck. When it finishes a notice appears, whatever page you're on.

While something is running, your profile picture in the top bar gets a ring around it showing the progress. The detail is under Processes, inside that same menu, along with whatever already finished and the date and time it started. That list stays even if you reload or close the tab: remove one row with the ✕, or empty it with Clear all.

If you launch several things at once they run one at a time, in order: the ones that haven't started show up as Queued and you pull them out with the X. That same X stops what's running, but cancelling stops what's left and doesn't delete what was already created: the cards it managed to create stay in the deck and the row tells you how many they were. Some stretches can't be cancelled any more, like cloning a deck or the last step of a .medkit: there the work happens on the server and the X goes dim, telling you why on hover.

You can also pause what's running: it stops where it is and the queue moves on to the next one, until you resume it. Cloning a deck can't be paused, because the server does it in one go. Like cancelling, pausing lives in your browser: if you close or reload the tab, anything paused is cut off.

Fixing a card

If a card comes in with a small error (a wrong word, one option too many, a hidden word in the wrong place) there's no need to import it to fix it: open it full size and tap Edit.

It's a reduced editor, meant for quick fixes: you change the texts, the options, and the additional info, and you can remove an image or an audio you don't want. What you can't do is swap them for others or move the card's composition. For that, import it and edit it afterward with the full editor.

If the card still has a problem when you save (a side ended up empty, or you didn't pick which option is correct), Medkit tells you and doesn't save the change.

The cards that won't be imported because of an error are listed separately, above the grid. The ones that can be fixed have a Fix button, and once you get it right the card joins the grid of cards that will be imported.

What isn't imported yet