Here's a quick guide on how to use the Flashcard Lab Google Sheets add-on to make customized flashcards for studying anything.

For a YouTube video demo:

When installing the add-on for Google Sheets, make sure you allow all the permissions for the app to function properly.

1. If you haven't, go to the dropdown "Extensions" menu, Flashcard Lab, Start Here, click "Generate Sample Deck".

2. Start testing with flashcards by clicking the "Start Reviewing" button.

3. Select the deck you want to review. A deck is just a list of study material in your Google Sheets spreadsheet. You can customize your study material to your liking but it must follow the template format (ie "prompts" in the first column, "answers" in the second column, etc.).

4. Now, you can start studying! Navigate using the buttons at the bottom or using the arrow keys on your keyboard.

Optional: To make a custom deck, start by copying one of the sheets and delete everything but the headers. Headers are customizable.

Pro tip: Use the arrow keys to navigate when reviewing your flashcards. Also, the pressing the spacebar will flip the card.

Pro tip 2: If you're having a hard time seeing the cards because the screen resolution is too small, zoom out in your browser like this.

From the sidebar, click the "Print Flashcards" button.

Doing so will make this pop up:

This popup allows you to select the sheet you want to print and the settings on how you want to configure your flashcards in Google Docs. It is a good idea to test print a few pages before committing to printing all the flashcards.

You can choose 6 or 8 cards per page.

The flashcards are currently only available on an 8.5 by 11 inch piece of paper.

You can add images or audio files to study. The process is very similar for each so I'll just show how to add images.

1. In the review modal, you can click the "Edit Deck" button or you can click the "My Decks" button in the sidebar and hover over a specific deck and click the pencil icon.

2. Click the "Add image" button to upload or paste in a URL from the web.

3. Click "Save" to save the image to your spreadsheet so that you can review it.

For audio, you need to paste in audio file URLs as only those are supported (ie an MP3 hosted on a website).

1. On the sidebar, click the gear icon.

2. Check "Spaced Repetition" and customize your intervals.

What are intervals? It is the amount of time in days between reviews that your flashcards will be shown depending on their review difficulty. When you customize the intervals in the settings, the intervals are measured in days and should be input in ascending order. Each interval should be a whole number and they should be separated by a space. You can set up to 10 intervals.

For example, "0 1 4" would indicate that the hardest flashcards are due for review every test (no delay interval). The 2nd hardest cards are due for review every day and the 3rd hardest are due for review every 4 days. The default intervals are "0 1 2 4 8 16".

Note: Column F is reserved for spaced repetition. Do not edit column F in the spreadsheets if you are using spaced repetition.

3. After you save the settings, you can start reviewing like normal.

You'll study the same way as before except now, before you move to the next flashcard, you'll be asked to rate the difficulty of the current card. There are three options.

Click "Hard" if you aren't very familiar with the card or want to study this card frequently. This will categorize the card to be the most difficult and reviewed the most as defined by your interval settings.

Click "Keep" if you want to keep this card at it's current interval and finally click "Easy" if you want to graduate this card to the next interval and review it less frequently.

You have the option to add cards that you are having a hard time with to the "Forgotten" sheet tab in your spreadsheet. If this tab does not exist, you will need to create it in your spreadsheet. Name it "Forgotten" (case sensitive). Then, you will be able to add cards to that deck with any version of the Flashcard Lab app.

1. The first step is to go to the "My Decks" interface by clicking the "My Decks" button in the sidebar.

2. At the top right, click the "Create with AI" button.

3. Upload the PDF of your choice. The file could be lecture notes from a class or a text book in PDF form. Flashcard Lab will process the text in that PDF to automatically generate a deck of cards for you to study. Click "Generate New Deck" to star the process. This can take a few minutes if the PDF is large. Note that the app supports processing PDF text and not the images in the PDF as of right now.

You can close the app and come back later or refresh the status of the draft decks to check when the processing is done.

4. Once the deck is done processing, it will be in the "Draft Deck AI" tab. You can review and edit it by clicking the pencil icon. If you are satisfied with the results, click "Save to sheet" to save it to your current spreadsheet for review.

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If you have any feedback, found any issues or bugs, or have any questions at all, please email support@flashcardlab.co. We will respond as soon as possible to resolve any problems / answer any inquiries.