Generate cards from Table

[Sinister]

Can you generate cards from a table?

I very frequently have information that is tabulated. Here is a crude example:

Muscle	Blood supply	Nerve supply	Origin attachment	Insertion attachment	Function
Pronator Quadratus	Anterior interosseus	Anterior interosseus (median, C8/T1)	Ulna	Radius	Initiate forearm pronation
Piriformis	Inferior gluteal	Sacral plexus (S1-S1)	Sacrum	Greater trochanter of femur	Hip extension, lateral rotation
Obturator internus	Internal pudendal and superior and inferior gluteal arteries	obturator internus and superior gemellus – a branch of the sacral plexus (L5, S1)	Obturator foramen	Greater trochanter of femur (medial surface, via obturator internus tendon)	Hip extension, lateral rotation

What I have been doing is creating a card template, which asks for the details of each of the columns.

Then, I’ve been making cards for every combination of column questions (Muscle → details; Detail → muscles).

For example:

• (Muscle → details) What is the Origin attachment(s) of the Pronator Quadratus muscle? Ulna
• (Muscle → details) What is the function(s) of the Piriformis muscle? Initiate forearm pronation
• (Detail → muscles) What muscle(s) has function of Hip extension? Piriformis, Obturator internus
• (Detail → muscles) What muscle(s) has nerve supply of sacral plexus? Piriformis, Obturator internus

Is it possible that Anki extends the “Add card” function to also have “Generate cards” from different types of information, such as tabulated information? The neat addition of having it directly in Anki is utilizing database functionality to generate cards which might otherwise be overlooked (such as finding all muscles which have a common function). Further, it centralizes information directly in Anki so that small edits don’t need to recreate all the cards.

The simplest idea (and possibly best) I have for this would be maintaining the table format and generated a card with only one row. Corresponding to the above examples:

Muscle	Origin attachment
Pronator Quadratus	[…]

Muscle	Function
Pronator Quadratus	[…]

Function	Muscles
Hip extension	[…]

Nerve supply	Muscles
Sacral plexus	[…]

[ferophila]

You can export a spreadsheet to a csv file (or create such a file manually) and import this file straight into Anki.

https://docs.ankiweb.net/importing.html

[Sinister]

This is only for front and back. It doesn’t support when there are multiple columns.

[ferophila]

There is no such limit. You can fill a dozen fields from a csv file and even add media files this way.

(I know this because I have done this with hundreds of bird species )

[Sinister]

Ah, I see. Yes, you are correct. I did not know about this feature. This speeds up the import process

Unfortunately, I see this as still having the problem of needing to make a new note type for each table when really all the tables are handled the same. I’m just connecting the first column as a front/black to the other columns as the opposite side.

[dae]

Notetypes were intended to be used when you have hundreds or thousands of items in the same structure - I would not recommend them for small tables. For those, the fastest way is probably simple front/back cards, which you can either type in (the act of doing so is part of the learning process), or you can automate by pasting into ChatGPT or similar (but make sure to double-check its output).