Alphabetical Study Order

Anki Help
1

Hi,
So I am using anki to study in med school. I inherited a deck of great cards from someone a couple of years above me. However, some of the cards in the deck or for different lectures/tutorial etc., or the lecture/tutorial has updated slides. So naturally I had to create some new cards. However, my new cards and the old cards didn’t mix, neither in browse or study mode.

Initially I thought I got around this by creating cards using a lecture name + a small code to sort them alphabetically (“Medicine AA”, “Medicine AB”, etc.) into specific subject ‘bundles’. This worked a charm for browse mode, where all my cards are in order according to how I see fit. I thought I had solved it at first, because the default order in browse mode is alphabetical.

The problem came when I went into study mode. I cannot seem to find any way to change the study order to being anything other than “in order created”. I have googled it and read other posts, but can’t find any way to change it. This seems to me to be a pretty significant hole in the design? You can’t for example retrospectively make new cards for a subject without them being put at the end of the deck and completely separated from the other cards on the subject. I know tags etc. exist but they don’t allow you to insert a card into a series to allow for ‘step by step learning’.

Basically my alphabetical coding system is the way I’ve decided the cards should be ordered, and I want them to be able to be studied in that order in study mode.

It would be great to get any help with this, be it either a way to get them in alphabetical order or another work around (maybe I’m not familiar enough with some of the more sophisticated settings on anki?)

Any advice would be appreciated! :slight_smile:

2

Hi, you can use the Reposition tool:

So, sort the cards in the browser to your liking, select them, right click, Reposition…. You probably don’t have to mind the settings in the dialogue, just don’t check Randomise. :wink:

2 Likes
3

:raised_hands: :raised_hands:

Thank you!! I knew there must have been a simple way to change it! Really appreciate it :slight_smile:

4

FYI: the verbiage in the Manual is ambiguous; so i suggest watching what Anki does during reposition and at reviewing.

Also, you should keep the ‘Shift’ option selected.

PS. The option 'Undo" works, so you will be able to play with the process

5

Indeed the reposition option can do the trick.
The full process is:

  1. Order the cards based on the desired sort column
  2. Reposition them (for me I have to start from idx1, otherwise the first card becomes last).
  • At this step you can see the updated Due field.
  1. Go to Tools->Create Filtered Deck:
  • In search field: put your deck name (as it appears on the browser)
  • limit: 0 (puts all cards)
  • order due
  • optionally remove rescheduling based on answers option