Flashcard Basics

Learn how to get started using flashcards to memorize the most important parts of your notes.

Soren Bjornstad avatar
Written by Soren Bjornstad
Updated over a week ago

You can turn any Rem in your knowledge base into a flashcard to easily remember it forever. Here's how.

Creating Flashcards

Flashcards in RemNote, like paper flashcards, have a front and a back side. For the most basic type of flashcard, write the front and back side directly within the text of your notes, separating them with == or >>. For example, if we wanted to remember what a covalent chemical bond is, we might type:

What is a covalent chemical bond? == One where a pair of electrons are shared.

When you type == or >>, RemNote will change it into a fancy arrow:

To preview your flashcard, click on the arrow:

This is only the tip of the iceberg – RemNote offers many other types of flashcards, including backwards and two-directional flashcards, fill-in-the-blank cards, multi-line and multi-step cards, image occlusion cards, flashcards generated from tables, and more. However, trying to learn how to use all of these at once tends to be overwhelming, so we recommend you create and practice some of these basic flashcards first. Then, once you're comfortable with that and you're ready to dive into more advanced options, read Creating Flashcards to learn more.

Practicing Flashcards

Once you've created some flashcards, it's time to practice them! RemNote has two main practice modes:

  • Practice with Spaced Repetition: In most cases, you'll want to let RemNote choose when to show you flashcards. RemNote uses a spaced-repetition algorithm to predict when you're likely to forget each card, and shows you the card shortly before you would forget it. This means you can have tens of thousands of cards, but only need to practice a few dozen each day.

  • Practice All: If you're about to take an exam or you want some extra practice, you can look at all the flashcards of a particular topic, regardless of when RemNote predicts you will forget them.

When you have any flashcards due for review according to the spaced-repetition algorithm, a number will appear in the Flashcards row of the sidebar (in the upper-left corner of your screen). Click this button to practice all the flashcards you're about to forget.

If you want to focus your practice on a specific document, you can also open that document and use the practice button in the upper-right corner. Clicking the main button will practice the document with spaced repetition; if you want to practice even the cards that aren't currently due for review, click the drop-down arrow next to it and select “Practice All Flashcards”.

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