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PDF to Anki: Turn a PDF into an Anki Deck (.apkg)

Upload a PDF, slides or notes and let AI write the flashcards.

  • Four steps: upload, generate, edit, export the .apkg
  • Reads text PDFs, scanned pages and photos of notes
  • Front-and-back cards with math formulas kept intact

Sample output

What does the mitochondrion produce?

ATP, the cell's main energy source.

Where does glycolysis happen?

On this page

  • How Does PDF to Anki Conversion Work?
  • Does it work with scanned PDFs and PDFs without a text layer?
  • Cloze or basic cards: what does the deck contain?
  • How do you import an .apkg file into Anki?
  • PDF to Anki: AI Cards vs Typing Them Yourself
  • What Makes a Generated Anki Deck Worth Using
  • Make Your Anki Deck from a PDF
On this page+
  1. How Does PDF to Anki Conversion Work?
  2. Does it work with scanned PDFs and PDFs without a text layer?
  3. Cloze or basic cards: what does the deck contain?
  4. How do you import an .apkg file into Anki?
  5. PDF to Anki: AI Cards vs Typing Them Yourself
  6. What Makes a Generated Anki Deck Worth Using
  7. Make Your Anki Deck from a PDF

How Does PDF to Anki Conversion Work?

There are three ways to get a PDF into Anki. You can type the cards yourself, which is slow. You can use a converter that copies text out of the file, which only works if the PDF has a selectable text layer. Or you can use an AI generator that reads the pages, picks the ideas worth testing and writes front-and-back cards for you. StudyPDF is the third kind. You upload the file, get a deck you can edit, and export it as an .apkg, the file format Anki imports natively.

Does it work with scanned PDFs and PDFs without a text layer?

Yes. A quick test: open the PDF and try to select a sentence. If you can, it has a text layer. If the whole page highlights as one block, it is a scan. Converters that read only the text layer return nothing from a scan. StudyPDF renders each page and reads it with a vision model, so scans, photographed notes and handwriting are read too. Diagrams and tables are cropped out of the page, so a card can show the figure instead of a vague description of it.

Cloze or basic cards: what does the deck contain?

The deck contains basic front-and-back cards: the front asks, the back answers in one to three sentences. StudyPDF does not export cloze notes. Basic cards suit definitions, mechanisms, causes and formulas. Cloze suits a sentence where one term is the thing to recall. If you want gap-style practice, create a quiz with fill-in-the-blank questions in the app. For diagrams, StudyPDF can build an image-occlusion deck, where the labels on a figure are hidden and you recall each one. That deck exports to Anki's native Image Occlusion note type.

How do you import an .apkg file into Anki?

On a computer, open Anki, click File > Import and choose the .apkg file, or drag the file into the Anki window. The cards appear as a new deck. Anki's default is 20 new cards a day, so a large deck is spread over the days. You can change that in the deck options. AnkiWeb has no .apkg import, so import on the desktop first and sync, and the deck reaches your phone. If you rework a deck later, export it again and import the new file.

PDF to Anki: AI Cards vs Typing Them Yourself

Typing cards by hand at about a minute a card means 50 cards cost most of an hour, and the hour is gone before the first review. With an AI draft you read, fix and delete instead of writing from scratch, which is faster and makes you check every card once. A browser extension that grabs highlighted text only captures what you marked. A generator that reads the whole document also finds what you skipped. The tradeoff is that you still read the cards before you trust them.

What Makes a Generated Anki Deck Worth Using

A PDF to Anki deck is only useful if the cards are good. Making one card per sentence gives you hundreds of cards that test nothing. StudyPDF splits your material into topics and concepts first and writes cards for the ideas you have to learn, with short answers you can check in a second.

Every card cites the page it came from, so when an answer looks wrong you open the source instead of guessing. Formulas written in LaTeX are converted to Anki's MathJax format, so they render in Anki instead of showing raw dollar signs.

You stay in control of the deck. Read the cards, delete the weak ones and reword the rest before you export. A short, clean deck of 40 cards you review every day beats a deck of 400 you abandon in week two.

The .apkg export is on Pro and up. Free accounts can generate and study the cards inside StudyPDF, so you can see the quality before you decide whether you need the file.

Make Your Anki Deck from a PDF

Make a free account, upload your document or slides, generate the flashcards and check the cards. When the deck looks right, export the .apkg on Pro and import it with File > Import. Your first review can start the same evening.

Try it on your own material

Upload your notes, slides or readings and see it work on your own course.

Make flashcards from my file

Free account, no card needed

How to Turn a PDF into an Anki Deck in 4 Steps

From upload to your first review in Anki takes a few minutes. The steps:

  1. 1

    Upload your document or slides

    Drop in a PDF, lecture slides, a photo of your notes or a mix. Scanned pages are read too, not skipped.

  2. 2

    Generate the cards

    Open New material, pick Flashcards, choose the lecture or the whole course and set the number of cards and the difficulty. Each card cites the page it came from.

  3. 3

    Edit the deck

    Read through the cards, fix wording, delete duplicates and change anything that is too vague before it leaves the app.

  4. 4

    Export the .apkg and import it

    The cards show up as a new deck.

What You Get from the PDF to Anki Route

Less typing, cards that stay tied to your material, and a file Anki opens without extra tools.

  • A native .apkg export on Pro and up, no add-on and no copy-paste
  • Cards come from your own pages, each one cites its source
  • Edit any card before you export to get exactly the deck you want
  • Math and formulas are converted to Anki's MathJax format
  • Works with PDFs, slides, handouts and photographed notes

More to try

  • ToolLecture Slide Flashcards
  • AnswerHow do you use Anki?
  • ComparisonThe best Anki alternatives in 2026
  • ComparisonAnki vs RemNote: which is better for flashcards and notes?
  • Use caseYouTube to Flashcards
  • Use caseHistory Flashcards

Make flashcards from your own lecture.

Upload one lecture or chapter and flip through your first cards.

Make flashcards from my fileTry the free flashcard maker

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