Genanki and fastcore

by Audrey M. Roy Greenfeld | Sun, Jan 19, 2025

Working with Anki flashcard decks in Python, with genanki to work with the decks and fastcore for ease of use.

import genanki
from fastcore.utils import *

Model

First I define a model with Q&A fields and a card template:

my_model = genanki.Model(
  1607392319,
  'Simple  Model',
  fields=[
    {'name': 'Question'},
    {'name': 'Answer'},
  ],
  templates=[
    {
      'name': 'Card 1',
      'qfmt': '{{Question}}',
      'afmt': '{{FrontSide}}<hr id="answer">{{Answer}}',
    },
  ])

Notes

I create a note:

note_gm = genanki.Note(model=my_model, fields=['Magandang umaga', 'Good morning'])
note_gm

It's nice to bulk-create notes like this:

notes = L(['Magandang hapon', 'Good afternoon'],
    ['Magandang gabi', 'Good evening'],
    ['Paalam', 'Goodbye'])
notes

Recall before that in my_model the first field goes into Question and the second goes into Answer.

Then to actually turn those list items into notes:

def add_note(qa): return genanki.Note(model=my_model, fields=qa)

gn = notes.map(add_note)
gn

Deck

Let's create a deck and add 1 starter note:

my_deck = genanki.Deck(
  2059400110,
  'Tagalog Greetings')

my_deck.add_note(note_gm)

We can see the note's in the deck:

my_deck.notes

We extend it with the rest of the notes we bulk-created:

my_deck.notes.extend(gn)

my_deck.notes

Packaging the Deck for Anki

This writes out an Anki package file that we can import:

genanki.Package(my_deck).write_to_file('tagalog_greetings.apkg')

!ls *.apkg

Opening the Deck in Anki

In Anki Desktop:
  1. I went to File > Import
  2. I chose tagalog_greetings.apkg
  3. I was able to go through the cards like any other deck!

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