Reference walkthrough · the Source field on a Studyly Anki note
The Anki field most PDF-to-Anki tools forget to ship.
You upload a PDF, the tool writes cards, you import the .apkg into Anki. Three weeks into review you hit a card that looks wrong. With most tools, that means closing Anki, opening the PDF, finding the chapter, and reading enough context to decide whether the card is right. Ninety seconds per suspect card. The cards you do not bother to verify survive to exam day.
The Studyly export carries three extra fields on every note: SourceFile, SourcePage, and SourceQuote. The back template renders them in a small bordered block under the answer. You verify a suspect card in one glance, you edit it inside Anki in fifteen seconds, and you do it without leaving the deck. This page is a tour of those fields and what to do with them.
Direct answer · verified 2026-05-07
Yes, you can keep PDF page citations on every Anki card. Most tools do not. Studyly does.
The .apkg ships with a Studyly-namespaced note type whose fields include SourceFile, SourcePage, and SourceQuote. The back card template renders the file name, the page number, and a verbatim line from that page under the answer. You see the source on every review, in every Anki client (Desktop, AnkiMobile, AnkiDroid). Image-occlusion notes carry the same fields plus a figure caption. YouTube-sourced cards swap SourcePage for SourceTimestamp.
Methodology and the four-criterion eval the cards are built against live on studyly.io/quality. Sister page on the .apkg structure and image-occlusion path is studyly.io/t/anki-card-generator-for-medical-school.
What is on the back of a Studyly Anki card
The toggle below shows the same multiple-choice question as it appears on the back of a card from a generic PDF-to-Anki tool, then as it appears on the back of a Studyly-generated card. The fact being tested is identical. The difference is whether the source travels with the card.
Front: 'Which structure separates the right and left ventricles?' Back: 'Interventricular septum.' That is the entire card. To verify it, open the PDF, find the cardiology chapter, scan for ventricular septum, and read for context. About 90 seconds per suspect card.
- No source on the card
- No way to verify without leaving Anki
- Misread cards survive to exam day
- Editing requires opening the source manually
The eight fields on the studyly_mcq note type
Open Tools, Manage Note Types in Anki after the import. Pick studyly_mcq, click Fields. This is the list you will see, in this order. The studyly_cloze and studyly_image_occlusion note types share the same source fields and add a few of their own.
studyly_mcq fields
- Front: the question stem, four answer options for an MCQ, blanked-out span for a cloze.
- Back: the correct answer in large type, plus a one-sentence explanation underneath.
- SourceFile: the original PDF or PowerPoint file name (Anatomy_I_Lecture_4.pdf).
- SourcePage: the page number in the source the answer came from (page 47).
- SourceQuote: a verbatim line from that page supporting the right answer.
- Topic: the slide title or section heading the question was generated from (used for sub-deck tagging on import).
- CardId: a stable identifier per card so a future re-export can detect duplicates instead of writing them twice.
- On image-occlusion notes: Image, Mask, Original Mask, and SourceFigure (the figure caption from the source slide).
The default Back template, copied verbatim
You can read this in Anki the same way: pick the studyly_mcq note type, click Cards, look at the Back template. The block at the bottom is what renders the source. Edit it freely; it is your local deck once the import is done.
One PDF, end to end
Drop the PDF into Studyly
Lecture slides, textbook chapter, scanned handout, or research paper. The file is parsed page by page; each generated card stores a span pointer back to the page it came from.
Generation runs in roughly 60 seconds
About 200 cards from a 90-slide deck. Each card carries Front, Back, Explanation, SourceFile, SourcePage, SourceQuote, Topic, and a CardId. The quote is a verbatim line from the source page.
Export to .apkg
One click. The package is a real Anki .apkg readable by AnkiDesktop, AnkiMobile, and AnkiDroid. File size is small because the source PDF is not bundled inside (only the figures used by image-occlusion cards).
Import into Anki
File menu, Import. Lands as a top-level deck named after the lecture file. The Studyly note types appear in Tools, Manage Note Types, alongside whatever AnKing or Zanki types you already had.
Review with the source visible
Flip a card. Below the answer you see the source file, the page number, and the verbatim quote. If the card looks wrong, you can verify or edit it in 15 seconds without leaving Anki.
Real run on a 90-slide cardiology deck. The note-type field list is what you will see in Anki under Tools, Manage Note Types after the import. Source PDF is not bundled inside the .apkg by default; the page reference is enough to find it on your own disk.
A trick: drill source-first on a second pass
Once you have been through a deck a few times, you start pattern-matching the question wording instead of recalling the fact. Studyly handles this automatically inside its own app by rephrasing the stem on revisit, but Anki does not have that feature: a card in Anki always renders the same Front. The workaround is to swap which field is the cue.
Add the SourceQuote to the Front of the card template. The cue becomes the verbatim passage from the PDF; the test becomes whether you can identify the question being asked. It is harder than the stem-first version because the passage gives you context but does not phrase it as a question. Useful on a second-pass drill of a deck you have already seen.
What you give up by exporting instead of studying inside Studyly
Different jobs, both honest. Pick by your existing routine.
| Feature | Other PDF-to-Anki paths | Studyly .apkg in Anki |
|---|---|---|
| Source field on the exported note | Most PDF-to-Anki paths (CardSnacks, AnkiApp PDF import, ChatGPT plus paste-to-Anki) do not include a source pointer. Once the card is in Anki, the link to the original PDF is gone. | Three dedicated fields per note: SourceFile, SourcePage, SourceQuote. The back template renders all three under the answer by default. |
| What you see on the back of a card during review | Answer plus an optional explanation. To verify the answer is right, you have to open the original PDF in another window and find the relevant passage yourself. | Answer, one-sentence explanation, source file, source page, and a verbatim line from that page in a small bordered block. Verification is one glance. |
| Note-type collision with your existing collection | Tools that write onto Anki's built-in Basic note type can shadow fields you already use. AnKing and Zanki layouts get confused on import. | Studyly-namespaced note types (studyly_mcq, studyly_cloze, studyly_image_occlusion). They sit alongside AnKing without touching its fields. |
| Image-occlusion source pointer | Generic PDF-to-Anki tools either drop figures or write basic image cards with no pointer back to the slide they came from. | Image-occlusion note carries the same SourceFile and SourcePage fields, plus a SourceFigure field holding the figure caption from the source slide. |
| Citation on YouTube-lecture source | Most tools do not handle video at all. Those that do strip the timestamp once the card is generated. | SourceTimestamp field holds the YouTube timestamp; SourceQuote is the transcript line at that second. Tap the timestamp to jump to that moment in the video. |
| Editing the source quote in Anki | Nothing to edit. The field is not on the card. | Normal Anki field. Edit the quote in the card editor; the change persists locally. A future Studyly re-export does not overwrite the local edit (the export is a snapshot). |
Honest limits
The source PDF is not bundled inside the .apkg. The fields point at the file name and the page number; if you want to open the PDF on that page, you do it from your own file storage. Bundling the PDF would make every export 10 to 100 MB heavier, and most students already have the source in their Drive or local Documents folder.
The auto-rephrase-on-revisit behavior is a Studyly app feature, not an Anki feature. Inside Anki, the card renders the same Front every time. The source-first template above is a workaround, not a replacement.
Local edits to a SourceQuote field do not flow back to Studyly. A re-export from Studyly produces a fresh .apkg with fresh quotes; your local edits live only in your Anki collection. CardId helps on re-import (existing notes update instead of duplicating), but the SourceQuote field gets overwritten with the new value.
For a textbook chapter scanned as an image-only PDF, OCR runs first and the source quote is whatever the OCR pass produced. If the OCR is hostile (a fourth-generation photocopy), the quote will read like OCR did. The page reference is still right.
Drop one PDF, see the source field on the back
Generate, export, import, flip. The page reference is right there.
Free tier on app.jungleai.com, no credit card. One full lecture export with all eight fields on every note, image-occlusion cards included. Imports next to AnKing without touching its note types.
Common questions about source citations on PDF-generated Anki cards
Do most PDF-to-Anki tools keep the source citation on the card?
No, most do not. The common pattern is: the tool reads your PDF, writes a Front and a Back, then exports a basic two-field note with no pointer back to the source. Once the .apkg lands in Anki, the original PDF is gone from the card's perspective. If a card looks wrong on review, you have no quick way to verify it without leaving Anki, opening the PDF, and grepping for the topic. Studyly is unusual here. The exported note type carries a SourceFile field, a SourcePage field, and a SourceQuote field with a verbatim line from the source, and the back card template renders all three under the answer by default.
What does the back of a Studyly-generated Anki card actually look like?
The default back template shows the answer in large type, a one-sentence explanation underneath, then a small bordered block labelled 'Source.' That block contains the source file name (Anatomy_I_Lecture_4.pdf, for example), the page number, and a verbatim quote from that page that supports the right answer. The quote is one or two lines and is the exact text the generator used as evidence when it wrote the card. You can read it on every review without opening the original PDF.
Can I move the source quote to the front of the card?
Yes. Open the card type in Anki (Tools, Manage Note Types, edit the studyly_mcq template), and add {{SourceQuote}} to the front template. Some students do this on their second pass through a deck, after they have stopped pattern-matching the question wording. The quote becomes the cue and the question becomes the test of whether you can identify what is being asked from the source itself. Worth trying once on a deck you have already seen a few times.
What fields are on the Studyly-namespaced note type?
Front, Back, Explanation, SourceFile, SourcePage, SourceQuote, Topic, and a CardId. Image-occlusion notes add Image, Mask, and Original Mask fields. The names are Studyly-prefixed (studyly_mcq, studyly_cloze, studyly_image_occlusion) so the import does not collide with AnKing or Zanki note types in your existing collection. You can confirm this from Anki's Tools, Manage Note Types panel after the import.
If I edit the source quote inside Anki, does anything break?
No. The fields are normal Anki fields once the .apkg has imported. Editing the SourceQuote field in Anki's card editor changes what renders on the back, and Anki tracks the edit on the note. The change does not flow back to Studyly (the export is a snapshot, not a sync). If you regenerate the deck from Studyly later, you will get a fresh export with fresh quotes; your edits live only in your local collection.
Does the source citation work for image-occlusion cards from anatomy diagrams?
Yes. The image-occlusion note carries the same SourceFile and SourcePage fields plus a SourceFigure field with the figure caption. The verbatim quote field holds the figure caption (since a labeled diagram does not have a quotable sentence, the caption is the closest equivalent). On review, you see the masked diagram on the front, and the back shows the structure name, the figure caption, the source file, and the slide number.
What happens to the citation if the source is a YouTube lecture instead of a PDF?
The same fields are populated, with SourcePage replaced by a SourceTimestamp field that holds the YouTube timestamp where the fact was discussed. SourceQuote is the transcript line at that timestamp. Inside Anki, the timestamp is a link to the video at the right second; tap it from AnkiMobile or click from desktop. This works for any YouTube source, not just lecture videos.
Does the citation prove the answer is correct, or is it just a hint?
The generator only ships a card if it can pull a passage from your source that supports the right answer. So in the structural sense, yes: the SourceQuote on every card is the passage the model used as evidence when it wrote the question. That said, the model can still misread a passage; the quote is your fastest way to spot it. If the quote does not actually support the answer, the card is wrong, and you fix it in 15 seconds inside Anki. Without the field on the card, you would not catch the mistake until exam day.
How does this compare to ChatGPT-generated Anki cards?
ChatGPT will produce questions from a PDF and you can paste them into Anki. There is no source field unless you ask the model to include one, and even then the field is whatever string the model produced rather than a pointer to a span in your file. Quality varies card to card. On the same held-out three-document eval, Studyly scored 81.3 (factual correctness, clarity, distractor quality, question-type coverage); generic chat output scored noticeably lower on distractor quality and type coverage. Methodology lives at studyly.io/quality.
If I import the .apkg into AnkiMobile, does the source field render on iPhone?
Yes. The card template is the same on all Anki clients, so the back of the card on AnkiMobile shows SourceFile, SourcePage, and SourceQuote in the same bordered block. On AnkiDroid, same. The quote is short enough that it fits on a phone screen without scrolling. If you tap the file name, AnkiMobile does not open the PDF (Anki does not bundle the PDF inside the .apkg by default), but the page reference is enough to find it in your own file storage.