How to use Anki in a simple manner

I just want to use Anki to go through a deck, without any review or repetition of cards. For example, I have a 10,000 card deck, which I downloaded from the anki website. I want to quickly run through about 1,000 cards a day. I do not want to see any cards repeated. I do not want to see cards reversed. After finishing, I want the program to remember where i left off, so that I can start at that same point the next day. For example, suppose i stopped at card 1,218. I want the software to automatically start at card 1,219 when i restart the deck the next day. I think that Anki is so convoluted in design, and I cannot figure out how to use this software from the instructions and from youtube videos.
What settings should i use to achieve my simple objective? Thanks in advance, Edward.

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Seems like a waste of a perfectly good Ferrari to me! But it sounds like you know what you want, so here’s how you do it. Let me know if you need a more detailed description of any of the steps.

  1. Build a Filtered deck with all of the cards. A search filter like deck:deckname will probably do it, but anything you can search for in Browse, you can use for a Filtered deck.
  2. In the Filtered deck Options – uncheck “reschedule based on” and set all of the delays to 0. Set whatever “selected by”/Order you want, but make sure the Limit is high enough to capture all of the cards.
  3. Click the Filtered deck to study. It doesn’t matter what grading button you pick, the cards will be returned to their home deck after you see them once. As long as you don’t Rebuild the deck before you’ve gone through all 10K cards, the deck will remember where you are.

[I might make different suggestions depending on what you want to do with the 10K cards after this process – but if you want to know more about that, you’ll have to provide additional details.]

Does the note type for this deck already make reversed cards (which are actually separate cards)? If not, no problem – just don’t make them. If so, you need to eliminate them from your search filter in #1. You can do that by searching them up in Browse and suspending them, or by excluding them from your search filter.

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Wow, many thanks for the prompt reply. I attach a screenshot of the filter menu. It seems to work, but I have a few questions:
(1) What time should I enter in “Repeat Failed Cards after ___ minutes”. I don’t know what this means. I changed that number from 10 minutes to 0 minutes. Is that ok?
(2) Is there any way to go through the cards using the mouse wheel, instead of clicking the mouse or pressing space bar?
(3) While studying the filtered deck, at the bottom it shows, “0 + 0 + 369”. I know that 369 means the number of cards left in deck. But what does “0+0” mean? Is it possible to display the card number, instead of the cards remaining in the deck?
(4) Is there any way to skip forward to a card number? For example, let’s say that I am currently on card number 1,256, and I want to jump ahead to card number 4,638. Can this be done?
Many thanks in advance, Edward

I didn’t realize you were using an older version. What version of Anki is this [see Help > About > Copy Debug Info]?

In current versions there are delays set for each answer button (as I mentioned in #2). But yes, setting that to 0 should be what you want.

[To clarify – the search filter and other settings in your screenshot will not accomplish what you asked for.]

Not without reprogramming your mouse to do something different. Mouse-wheel scrolling is used in the study screen for scrolling up/down the page. Enter is the other standard way to advance through cards.

Those counters generally mean the same thing they do in a regular study session (but there might be differences in older versions for a non-rescheduling Filtered deck). The blue counter is the number of New cards left, in the deck or in your daily limit; the red counter is the number of Learn/Relearn cards that are ready to be studied. You won’t have either in this deck.

Those card counters can be on/off [Preferences - Anki Manual], but you can’t substitute something else there.

If your cards have a number in a field and you want to display that on your cards, you can modify your templates to show it. Add it as a {{field replacement}} wherever you want the number to show – Field Replacements - Anki Manual . I could give you more specifics, but I would need more details.

Not in a Filtered deck, no. If you want to look at a particular card, you can search it up in the Browse window, but that won’t eliminate it from your deck.

Thanks for your patience in answering my questions Danika. The instructions are not clear on the Anki website. I’m using Windows 7, and Anki version 2.1.49, the latest version for Windows 7. I have a couple of other questions:
(1) Suppose i have a filtered deck containing 1,250 cards, not scheduled as you instructed. Is there any way of creating subdecks of 100 cards each, so that the result is 13 total subdecks, wherein 12 subdecks contain 100 cards each, and one subdeck contains 50 cards?
(2) Suppose that I am studying a 10,000 card deck, not scheduled. I’m on card 4,235. However, I wish to just start studying from the beginning of the deck with card 1. Is there any way to do this easily in Anki, or does Anki force me to go through all 10,000 cards in order to get back to card 1?
Thanks again for your generous help,
Edward

(1) You can’t create subdecks of a Filtered deck. But you can create 13 separate Filtered decks if you want to.

(2) All of the cards are unchanged from when you started studying them. So if you want to start the deck over, just Rebuild it, and it will be exactly the same as the first time (assuming you picked a non-random ordering). But there’s no “in order to get back to card 1” in this deck otherwise. These cards are only in the Filtered deck for you to see them once, and after that they return to their home deck.

Thanks for your patience and enormous help. I have a few more questions, if that’s ok. I could not figure it out from the website.
(1) I’m using the Basic card type (Front and Back of card). I study a basic deck from front to back, as usual. Is there an easy way to study this same basic deck from Back to Front? Do I need to create an entirely new deck which shows these cards from back then front? Or is there some option that I can click, so that this same deck (front to back) can be studied instead from back to front?
(2) I’m studying a 50 card deck. After studying all 50 cards in the deck, the number of cards remaining is zero. If I want to study this deck again, like 10 minutes later, is there some way to select an option, so that it will show the deck containing 50 cards to start all over again? Or do I need to delete this deck from Anki, then re-import it again?
(3) Can you tell me how to create new smaller decks from a deck? I cannot figure it out from the Anki website. For example, I have a deck of 3,000 Basic Cards. How do I create 30 new decks of 100 cards each from this 3,000 card deck?
Thanks again, Edward

(1) The easy way is to Change Note Type to “Basic (and reversed card)”. That will create a 2nd set of cards from these notes with the “Back” on the front of the cards.

Note types: Getting Started - Anki Manual
Change Note Type: Browsing - Anki Manual

(2) Is this is still a Filtered deck with rescheduling turned off, or have you switched to a regular deck? If it’s the Filtered deck – Rebuild the deck.

(3a) Is this a Filtered deck or a regular deck?

(3b) I can’t think of any way that isn’t laborious, but I also can’t think of any reason why you’d need to do that. Can you tell me more about what your ultimate goal is there?

(1) What do I click on to create a second set of cards to study Back to Front? the procedure is not clear from the Anki Manual. I would like to have two separate decks. One deck has Russian words on the front, the English translations on the back. The second deck has English translations on the front, and Russian words on the back.
(2) It can be either a filtered deck or regular deck. So, what you are telling me is that I need to delete the deck from Anki, and re-import it?
(3) It can be either a filtered deck or a regular deck, whichever is easier. I have downloaded a few Anki decks (russian - english). These decks have thousands of words each, basic card style. For example, one downloaded Anki deck has 3,000 cards. It would be easier to study 100 cards at a time. In order to do this, i need to create smaller decks (30 x 100 cards each) from this 3,000 card deck.
Thanks for the prompt reply, Edward

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(1) As I said – you change your note type from one that makes only one set of cards [like “Basic”], to one that makes two sets of cards [like “Basic (and reversed card)”].

To have each card-set be in a different deck –

  • For currently existing notes – after changing the note type, which will create the "Card2"s, use Cards > Change Deck to move those cards to the deck you want them in.
  • If you will be adding more notes in the future – set up “Deck Override” so that Anki will create the "Card2"s in a different deck. This will impact all notes that use this note type, so if you use this note type for other notes that shouldn’t get this treatment, you’ll need to first (back up at the top) – make a copy of the “Basic (and reversed card)” note type just for this – Manage Note Types > Add > “Add:Basic (and reversed card)” – and give it a unique name. Then change your notes to that note type instead.

(2) No, I didn’t say anything like that. But your options depend on what kind of deck you’ll be doing this in. When you figure that out, ask again, I guess.

(3) That’s my point – there’s no easy way. But I also don’t think that’s a useful way to approach that. If you only want to study 100 cards of the deck – suspend the rest of the cards. When you’re done introducing that first 100, and ready to start more, unsuspend another 100.

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