Flashcards, also called spaced repetition cards, allow you to easily and efficiently memorize the most important information in your notes. RemNote supports several types of flashcards.

You can make the first three types of cards into Multi-line cards by pressing Enter/Return after the shortcut.

Basic cards are the simplest type of flashcard. They have two sides, which are generally a prompt (question) and an answer, but you can put whatever you like on each side. By default, one card is created in the forward direction (show the prompt and ask for the answer), but you can instead choose to create a card in the reverse direction (show the answer and ask for the prompt), both directions, or neither direction. (You might choose not to create flashcards in either direction if you temporarily don't want to study a particular question.)

To create a Basic card, type the prompt, then >>, then the response. When you type >>, RemNote will change it into a pretty right arrow, indicating that you have one flashcard in the forward direction. Clicking the arrow will allow you to select what direction(s) to show flashcards in. You can also use << or <> to start with only a backwards card, or cards in both directions, respectively.

When you study any flashcard in RemNote, it will show all of the ancestors of the Rem the card was generated from – that is, all the Rem above it in the outline hierarchy – to provide you with context on the question you're being asked to answer, so you don't need to include this information in the prompt.

For example, consider this block of notes:

The card for "have own DNA?" would look like this:

Concept cards work much like Basic cards, but their prompt is the name of a concept (thing). Concepts are shown in bold, and, unlike Basic cards, concepts generate flashcards in both directions by default. (As with a Basic card, you can change what directions are tested by clicking on the arrow.) For more on Concepts, see Structuring Knowledge in RemNote.

Create a Concept card by typing the name of the concept, :: (two colons), and then its definition. You'll know that you've created a Concept card because the concept name turns bold.

Descriptor cards are similar to Basic cards and Concept cards, but they describe a specific attribute of their parent Concept. They are shown in italics and are shown only in the forward direction by default.

Create a Descriptor card by typing the name of the attribute, ;; (two semicolons), and then its description. You'll know that you created a Descriptor card because the attribute name turns italic.

The first three types of flashcards are created similarly: you put content on two sides of an arrow and then decide which directions to review them in. Cloze cards work completely differently: When creating the cards, you select specific parts of a Rem's text to hide. Then when reviewing the cards, you'll be asked to fill in these blanks (called occlusions).

Create Cloze cards from a Rem by selecting any text you want to occlude in it, then selecting the cloze button (dotted box icon) on the formatting toolbar or pressing the { key. Alternatively, create cloze cards as you type the text of a Rem by pressing {{ before typing the text you want to occlude and }} when you're done.

You can occlude multiple sections in the same Rem; if you do this, a drop-down arrow will appear next to each occlusion, allowing you to choose whether you want all of the sections to be hidden at once or each section to be hidden individually on a separate card. It's also possible to generate both Basic/Concept/Descriptor cards and Cloze cards from the same Rem: simply create the Basic card, then additionally select some portions to occlude.

It tends to be more difficult to write effective Cloze cards than effective Basic, Concept, or Descriptor cards. This is because the specific wording of the sentence surrounding the occlusion can make it artificially easy to remember the answer when you practice it within RemNote. In real life, when you need to remember a fact or idea, you won't have the luxury of being prompted by the same exact sentence every time! For this reason, many people prefer to use Cloze cards as a small part of an overall learning strategy, rather than a primary method of generating all flashcards. When you do use Cloze cards, for best results, be sure that the text surrounding the occlusion is a good representation of the context in which you want to remember the idea, and that it doesn't give the answer away by using unusual words or context cues.

Multi-line cards allow you to include a short list of items on the back of a card, rather than a single item. You can either reveal all the items at once on the back, or flip through them one by one.

Warning: Before you start creating multi-line cards, recognize that flashcards with long lists on the back side can be unnecessarily difficult to remember, potentially massively increasing the amount of study time required to learn the information. Lists also decrease the efficiency of RemNote's scheduler – if you forget a single element of a list, you'll necessarily have to practice the entire list over again, whereas if you find a different way to structure the information, you'll be able to repeat only the item(s) you're struggling with.

This said, short lists of two to four items are usually easy to create and not terribly difficult to remember, so they can be quite useful. To create a multi-line card, choose one of the following methods:

By default, any of the methods of creating a multi-line flashcard above will reveal all flashcard content simultaneously.

Testing one at a time

To instead be tested on each line separately, change the children into a numbered list rather than a bulleted list using one of these methods:

Note: When testing the items of a multi-line card one by one, card ratings work slightly differently: