Your lecturer has put the slides online as a PDF, and your January exams already have their dates. You haven't made a single card yet. If you want to create flashcards from that PDF, use Studyflash.
You upload the file and pick how many cards you want and which kinds. Studyflash writes the deck from the whole PDF, then gives you reviews, a study plan and mock exams to get you ready.
How to make flashcards from a PDF
Studyflash takes you from PDF to flashcards in five steps, and you decide what the cards look like.
- Create a course for the module and upload the PDF into it. Every deck you make from that file sits inside the course.
- Choose your settings before Studyflash writes the AI flashcards: the number of cards (low, medium or high), the level of detail, the card types and the language.
- Go through the deck. Edit any card, add your own, delete the ones you don't need, and search or filter when it gets long. If a batch isn't what you wanted, regenerate it with a note to Max, Studyflash's AI tutor, saying what to change. The cards you wrote yourself stay put.
- Set the exam date on the course. You get a countdown and a suggested number of new cards for each day.
- Start learning. Spaced repetition schedules each card by how well you remembered it. A quiz from the same PDF shows you which questions still trip you up.
Choosing card types that fit your PDF
A lecture PDF rarely looks the same from start to finish, so one kind of card won't suit all of it. Studyflash has six: definition, open-ended, fill in the blank, vocabulary, image and image occlusion. You tick the ones that match your module.
For a glossary at the back of a law handout, tick definition cards. Slides that walk through an argument are better served by open-ended questions, where you have to explain the idea in your own words.
Image occlusion is the one for diagrams. Take a labelled diagram of the heart: the labels are hidden and you name each covered part. Studyflash can also build them from an image you upload, so a diagram that only exists in a photo of your handwritten notes works too.
Make any card your own with the passage from your PDF
When AI turns your PDF into flashcards, you'll sometimes want a card to say a little more, or to say it your way. Say a card gives the year a treaty was signed, and your lecturer kept coming back to who signed it. You want that on the card too.
Ask Max about the card. He has read your decks and the PDF behind them, and he shows you the passage the card comes from. You see what your PDF says about the treaty, then add who signed it from what you remember of the lecture. The same goes for a card you'd word differently: rewrite it the way you'd say it.
Quizzes point you back to your PDF as well. After each one you see your answer next to the correct one, with an explanation drawn from your own PDF.
Getting from your deck to the exam
With your exams a few weeks off, turn to the study plan on your course. It lays the course out topic by topic, each with its cards, its quiz and how well you know it so far. It keeps going until you've mastered every topic. You tell it whether you're aiming to pass or going for the top grade. The plan suggests an order for the topics, but you don't have to follow it.
The last step of the plan is a mock exam, timed and graded. If you have old exams from the module, upload them and the mock exam follows their structure and question style. If you don't, you pick the number of questions, the time limit and the question types. You can sit one whenever you like, as often as you like.
On the last evening, cram mode lets you go through the whole deck in one sitting.
Studyflash or typing the cards yourself
| Studyflash | Typing the cards yourself | |
|---|---|---|
| What deck do I get from my PDF? | Cards from the whole file, in the number and types you choose | Only the cards you type, one at a time |
| Who edits the cards? | You, with Max pointing you to the passage in your PDF | Only you |
| How do I get to the exam? | A study plan to mastery, and mock exams with Premium | A plan you make yourself |
| What does it cost? | The free plan gives you flashcards, quizzes and unlimited chat with Max | Nothing |
| Where does it work? | Web, iPhone, iPad and Android in 27 languages, decks offline on your phone | Wherever your card app works, in your language |
| Best for | A PDF you need to learn for an exam | A handful of cards you want to word yourself |
Features checked on 24 September 2026. Plans are priced per country and shown at checkout.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, with no ads and no credit card needed. The free plan includes flashcards, quizzes, spaced repetition and unlimited chat with Max, Studyflash's AI tutor. It also gives you a monthly allowance for creating new cards, quizzes and summaries with AI. Premium makes that unlimited and adds mock exams, podcasts and unlimited study groups.
Yes. Your old Anki decks import into Studyflash with their basic and cloze cards, images included. New decks come straight from your PDF, and Studyflash schedules the reviews itself. Our guide to Anki alternatives covers the switch in more detail.
Photos of your handwritten notes go in just like a PDF does, and so do other documents and pasted text. A photo of one exercise you're stuck on is a different case: send it to Max in the chat and work through it with him there.
Yes, Studyflash makes the cards from your own PDF. Max shows you the passage behind any card you ask him about. If you'd word a card differently or want a detail on it, you edit it.
Studyflash keeps the cards in your course, along with everything you edited. If you need the module again for a resit or a later course, the deck is still there.
For a whole PDF, Studyflash is the better choice. Typing means one card at a time with the file open beside you, and the deck only covers the pages you got round to. Studyflash writes cards from the entire file, in the amount and card types you set. You can still add cards in your own words on top.