SUMMARIZING THE PROBLEM
. . . the deck in question, the IPA deck, works as far as I can tell in so far as you can study with it. It does what I want it to do. The problem is that I can export it as an Anki Collection Package (*colpkg), but it won’t export properly as an Anki Deck Package (*apkg). The error I get, as mentioned above, is:
Card template 2 in notetype ‘01 IPA’ has a problem. The front side is identical to card template 1.
The problem with this arrangement is that when anyone goes to upload the Anki Deck saved in the working Anki Collection Package, they can’t do it without getting all decks that are open (in whatever Profile you have open) in Anki deleted.
Apparently, having in one Note Type two or more Card Types with identical front sides is responsible for the problem that I am dealing with.
EXPLAINING THE DECK FURTHER
Earlier on, Rumo asked me for more info as to how the deck in question is organized. Hopefully, this will help in getting someone to help me figure out a way to correct the problem.
To begin with, IPA is an acronym for International Phonetic Alphabet. This is the most widely used and recognized phonetic alphabet that allows one to transcribe any language into a standard and fairly accurate script. It’s used in many dictionaries and in Wikipedia for translating words into a phonetic script equivalent.
I’ve grouped the symbols of the IPA into three main groups:
- vowels
- consonants
- other symbols
:which are treated in separate decks. The main groups also get divided into further subdecks as shown in the deck structure shown in the below image.
I want the order of study to go in two directions: one direction where you are prompted with an image of the letter, and the other where you are prompted with the name of the letter.

The above image shows the deck structure as it is seen in the Anki deck list. All folders and subfolders are displayed. The recommendation is that people try and keep deck structures simple and that you fine-tune searches by using filters. Creating filters can be a bit inconvenient and maybe a bit learning-curve steep. I’ve preferred to make a more extensive deck structure for quicker access to the card type that is needed.
CARD TYPES IN THE NOTE TYPE FOR THE DECK
The deck is accommodated by one Note Type which has six Card Types or Card Templates to produce the six different card types that I want. The following, also shown earlier, illustrates the arrangement of the cards, where the words represent a body of unique coding.
FRONT CARD BACK CARD
1// … 1. glyph first — + — 3. vowels
2// … 1. glyph first — + — 4. consonants
3// … 1. glyph first — + — 5. other symbols
4// … 2. name first — + — 3. vowels
5// … 2. name first — + — 4. consonants
6// … 2. name first — + — 5. other symbols
In this arrangement I have, front card templates are duplicated in first one group of three card templates, and secondly in the remainder group of three card templates. There also are three groups of two back cards that are duplicates. I get the impression that duplicates in back card templates might not be a problem, but I’m not sure.
I JUST HAD AN IDEA
To get around the problem that I’m having, what if I created three Note Types to replace the one Note type I currently have, and divide the existing card types amongst them, dispersing the card types in such a way that no Note Type will have duplicate front cards. For example:
Note Type 1
FRONT CARD BACK CARD
1// … 1. glyph first — + — 3. vowels
4// … 2. name first — + — 3. vowels
Note Type 2
FRONT CARD BACK CARD
2// … 1. glyph first — + — 4. consonants
5// … 2. name first — + — 4. consonants
Note Type 3
FRONT CARD BACK CARD
3// … 1. glyph first — + — 5. other symbols
6// … 2. name first — + — 5. other symbols
And if having duplicate back cards between any Card Types in any one NoteType is a problem, I suppose I could then create 6 Note Types, each containing one of the 6 Card Types. The question is whether Anki will go for this.
EXAMPLES OF CARDS IN IMAGES
Here are examples of images of the cards as they appear when studying. I only include the horizontal view and not the vertical view. The coding includes some conditional thing where you get displayed different formats for a horizontal screen and a vertical screen. The vertical screen view is more ideal for cell phone use.
The back cards for vowels, consonants, and other symbols, though similar are different.
card 1
1// … 1. glyph first — + — 3. vowels
front card
back card
card 2
2// … 1. glyph first — + — 4. consonants
front card
back card
card 3
3// … 1. glyph first — + — 5. other symbols
front card
back card
card 4
4// … 2. name first — + — 3. vowels
front card
back card
card 5
5// … 2. name first — + — 4. consonants
front card
back card
card 6
6// … 2. name first — + — 5. other symbols
front card
back card