Custom flashcard upload guide

If you use anki or have spreadsheets with information you'd like to study, you can upload those into NativShark Custom Flashcards. This guide shows you the step by step of how to do that.

Please note that this guide is for mass-uploading your current flashcards into the NativShark system.
If you do not have a flashcard deck that can be converted into a .txt or .csv file, you will likely be better off making cards directly into the NativShark.

This can be done by going to your custom flashcard deck in NativShark, creating a new deck if needed, and then hitting "Browse this deck" on the deck you want to add a card to.

Once in there, you will see a button called "Add card" which you can press to enter in information for a new card.

Once the information is filled, save the card and then hit "Activate deck" at the bottom of the page to start the reviews. You can add flashcards to the deck at any time before or after activating the deck.

There's 3 main parts if you're taking your deck from anki to NativShark.
If you already have the CSV for your deck, then you can start from part two.
Part one: Get anki file into a google spreadsheet.
Part two: Upload and properly format your sheet, and then download it.
Part three: Upload the CSV file you got from the google sheet into NativShark.
Troubleshooting is at the end.

This guide is written to be done using a computer.

Part 1: Export your anki deck to a .txt file

1. Go to "File" in the anki desktop app and hit "Export.”

1. Change "Export Format" to "Notes in Plain Text (*.txt)"

2b. Change "Include" to what deck you want to export. Note that you'll want to do this instead of choosing "All decks" in case there are any differences in formatting.

2c. Uncheck the two boxes that say "Include tags" and "Include HTML and media references"
It should look like this when you finish these steps:

1. Click the Export button as shown in the previous step and choose a place to save your file.

You now have your file exported as something we can put in Google Sheets.

Part 2: Upload your anki.txt into Google Sheets

1. Open up Google Sheets in your browser and make a new Google Sheet.
2. From there, click on "File" and hit "Import."

3. Click on the "Upload" tab on this screen and drag your file into the box shown.

4. When it's done uploading, you'll see the below screen. Click on "Replace current sheet" instead of the default "Create new spreadsheet," then "Import data.”

And now, a slight detour to NativShark to grab the example CSV we need:
5. Go to https://www.nativshark.com/tools/flashcards , scroll down to the "My Decks" section, and create a new deck by clicking on the "+ New Deck" box.
5b. Click on "Browse This Deck."

6. Click on the "Import from CSV" located next to the "Add Card" button.

7. Click the link that says "Click here" and you'll download the format and an example we need to upload our custom decks.

Back to our google sheet now that we have that file.
8. Like we did with our other file, we want to import this into a new sheet. Check out steps 2 and 3 of this part and do the same thing. Stop at step 4, as we want to select "Insert new sheet(s)" here.

You should be moved into the new sheet automatically, but just in case, look at the bottom of the screen and click on the second tab here. It should be whatever you named your anki file.

9. Rearrange your data to the order of the columns highlighted in blue in the below image. It must be in order of these columns.

If you have two columns for a focus word, and separate column for the kana reading of it, you'll have to do some magic in order to make it work with the formatting of furigana.
It will still need some manual editing once it's uploaded, but the following side step will do most of the legwork for you.

Part 2a (Optional) - Combine target word and kana reading field

Skip this step if you already had your kana formatted like this in a single box:

1. Locate your target word and your kana reading columns. In this example, it is column A and B.

2. Drag an empty column over to column C, or right click column C and click "Insert 1 left" to make an empty column there.

1. Click on square C2 and paste this formula in:
   =CONCATENATE(A2,"[",B2,"]")

and it should look like this when you hit enter or click away:

4. Make sure you have the box you just made highlighted, and then click on that small square at the bottom right corner. Drag it down your entire list to copy this formula for all the cards in your deck.

It should look something like this when you finish this step.

5. Now, click on the C at the top to highlight this entire column. Press control + C to copy it.

1. Go to an empty column and click at the top letter of it. Press Control + Shift + and V, or right click the letter, go to "Paste Special" and hit "Paste values only."
   Your new column should look similar to this.

7. Delete the three columns containing your target word, kana reading, and the formula we pasted into it.

8. Drag the column we just pasted all the way to the left, making it into column A. It will look something like this now.

Part 2a over!

1. Drag and drop to arrange your columns so they match this exact order:
   target_word
   definition
   sentence
   source
   translation
   alternate_translation
   note

11. Then rename your columns to be the names listed above, or go to the other sheet and copy and paste to make it easy.

Note that if there are any blanks in target_word, definition, or sentence, the upload will fail. Make sure all blanks are filled in before attempting to upload your CSV.

Also note that all extra fields that are outside of the following will cause the upload to have an error.
target_word
definition
sentence
source
translation
alternate_translation
note
In other words, if your sheet looks like this (the leftover columns H and I from the anki upload) then it will cause an error. These must be deleted before downloading the sheet.

Your CSV is now formatted correctly and we're all set there! All we need to do is...
12. Download it by clicking "File," "Download," then "Comma-separated values (.csv, current sheet)"

Part 3: Upload your CSV

1. Navigate to https://www.nativshark.com/tools/flashcards and click "Browse this deck" on the deck you made in the previous part, or make a new one and do the same.

1b. Click on "Import from CSV," which is next to the "Add Card" button.

2. Click on "Upload File" and locate the file we got from the Google Sheet.

3. Your deck is now being uploaded! You'll get an email when it's done. All that's left to do now is hit "Activate Deck" at the bottom and choose the amount of new cards you want per day. Happy studies!

Troubleshooting

Make sure all your columns are lined up correctly and the names are exactly these:
target_word definition sentence source translation alternate_translation note

Next, make sure there are absolutely no blanks in any of columns A, B, and C. Any easy way to do this is using the filter tool in Google Sheets.
To use the filter tool to check for blanks:

1. Highlight columns A, B, and C.

2. Click on "Data" and hit "Create a filter.”

3. Click on the three lines in each box and see if you find a box that says "(Blanks)." In this example, we have a blank in column B.

4. Click "clear" and then check "(Blanks)" so that is the only box checked. Then hit OK.

5. The rows that are left after this filter are our culprits. Fill them in with the necessary info, then repeat steps 3 and 4 to check the other columns.

6. Once you have checked all columns for blanks, you can go to "Data" and hit "Turn off filter.”

Download the sheet again and reupload that to NativShark.
All extra fields that are outside of the following will cause the upload to have an error.
target_word definition sentence source translation alternate_translation note
In other words, if your sheet looks like this (extra columns H and I are filled in) then it will cause an error. These must be deleted before downloading the deck.

If it still isn't working, feel free to come and ask in #nativshark-tools-help in our Discord community!