Add Items

For an introduction on how to add items, see this screencast. The interface has changed a little since the screencast was made, but is basically the same.

If the window is mostly blank, you have accidentally hidden the middle area. Move your mouse to the line near the top of the window and the cursor will change. Drag down. If you are missing the status area down the bottom, move your mouse to the bottom of the window and drag up.

Required and unique fields

By default, Anki won't let you add items if certain fields are blank, or if they contain the same information as in another card. Yellow fields indicate fields that are blank, and red fields indicate fields which duplicate information. You can change what Anki will complain about in the ModelProperties#Fields dialog.

Cards

Anki allows you to generate different "cards" for the data you put in - for example, you might want to quiz yourself from city to country and country to city when reviewing capital cities of the world. Click the cards button on the top right to change this.

Built in Tags

Separate tags with spaces.

Reading generation

Anki automatically generates a reading when you input Japanese or Chinese text. If Anki can't work out which reading is correct, it will display multiple readings. Double click the correct one to remove the others.

Shortcuts

On a Mac, Alt is the Option key.