for card in root.findall('card'): q = card.find('question').text a = card.find('answer').text note = genanki.Note(model=my_model, fields=[q, a]) my_deck.add_note(note)
Anki has become the gold standard for spaced repetition flashcards, helping students, language learners, and professionals memorize massive amounts of information. However, creating thousands of cards manually inside the Anki interface is incredibly slow.
Map your spreadsheet columns to the corresponding Anki fields (e.g., Column 1 right arrow Front, Column 2 right arrow To generate the
: You can use Python's xml.etree.ElementTree to extract your data and feed it into Genanki to create a perfectly formatted package without manual cleanup. xml to apkg
Before writing any conversion logic, you need to understand what is happening under the hood of both file types. What is XML?
Real‑world XML files are rarely as simple as the example above. Here are common patterns and how to handle them:
| Problem | Solution | |---------|----------| | genanki not found | Run pip install genanki again | | Duplicate card IDs | Anki handles duplicates, but you can skip via dictionary | | XML namespaces | Use find('.//ns:tag', 'ns': 'uri') | | Large XML files | Use iterparse for streaming instead of ET.parse | | Anki model mismatch | Customize genanki.Model fields and templates | for card in root
# include media_files list if needed genanki.Package(my_deck).write_to_file('output.apkg')
How to Convert XML to APKG: The Ultimate Guide to Building Anki Decks from Structured Data
If you aren't comfortable with coding, there are specific third-party tools designed to handle this bridge, particularly for common XML sources like Brainyoo or older flashcard apps. Before writing any conversion logic, you need to
An .apkg file is Anki's native package format used to export and import decks. Despite its unique extension, an APKG file is actually a compressed containing:
For "putting together a long piece" (large datasets), the most stable method is converting your XML to a Spreadsheet (CSV/XLSX) and then importing that into Anki.
Method 2: The Manual Intermediate Step (XML → CSV → APKG)
Before writing scripts or clicking buttons, it helps to understand how these two file formats handle data.