Anki Essentials

by Alex Vermeer

Anki Essentials is a 100+ page guide to using Anki, a powerful and free piece of software that makes remembering things easy.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Productivity, Software

120 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Mirzhan Irkegulov · Rating 3 out of 5]

First: if you haven't used spaced repetition before, just install Anki and start putting stuff in it right away. Seriously, this is the cheapest, easiest, laziest intervention that can massively improve your quality of learning.

Now, Alex Vermeer's gratis ebook is basically a better written Anki manual. It helped me overcome fear of using custom note types (so custom fields and card layouts). Before this book I had most of my cards in a single deck with note types being either “basic” or “basic (and reversed card)”.

I think Anki Essentials is a good companion for Anki itself and I might even print it out and give it out to people to motivate them start using spaced repetition. Alas, the ebook is not free culture and doesn't have a free license, sigh.

Most of all I liked that the author demystifies note types, fields, card layouts, and references “the 20 rules” — benefits of spaced repetition software directly depend on how you formulate cards.

Anyway, if you're still reading it, download the book (it's available online), install Anki and start adding flashcards. Start small, do recalls everyday, make sure your cards are tiny and simple, it's OK to have many seemingly trivial cards for the same concept, it's OK to put really basic stuff into the system. Seriously, just do it.

[Brandon Baggett · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is alright. While it is short and simple, it lacks depth. As a new user to Anki (less than a week), I learned 90% of this before reading the book. That wouldn't be a big deal except mostly everything that Vermeer writes about are the things he likes and uses regularly without thinking about the needs of the reader. This would have been easily fixed if he were to share a link to good sources that go outside of what he knows and likes. This could have been done during the explanation of HTML, CSS, LaTeX, Keyboard Shortcuts, and more. I am not saying that he should have fully covered all of those, just that he should have provided a link to the basics. This would have removed the need for the reader to evaluate the sources of an unknown topic.

That being said, I did learn some stuff and I appreciated some of the ideas for using Anki. In the end, this is a decent introduction to the system.

[Boykie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having used Anki for a while, most of the tips given in the book were already second nature.

Also, my implementation of Anki is pretty minimal in that I just have one master deck and most of my cards are the default basic card type.

At the very least it was a good reminder on the value of using Anki and I have come away with looking into creating custom cards.

The book will be good for someone new to using Anki, however for those who have used it for over 3 months I don't believe you'll get anything new from it.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very useful introduction to the "spaced repetition software" (SRS) Anki. Even advanced users will learn about yet unknown functions. Personally I recommend this book to anyone who works with the program : )

[dathinge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book for a beginner, like me.

I liked it.
A nice guide to the very beginner, as I am. I started using Anki a couple of months ago and now I am using It more seriously.
I think after reading this book I can use Anki better than before. Maybe the four stars are because the author doesn't explain some features more in deep, just covers It briefly and shallowly (e.g. info regarding add-ons, or maybe more examples about card and note creation).
But a good book, I found It useful.

[John Wanga · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always, the Caucasians are brilliant with their pursuit of knowledge & understanding of tools. As a beginner user of Anki with a limited deadline I almost collapsed with all the confusion surrounding the tool lol 😁🤦‍♂️From spaced algorithims to confusing add-ons & the fact that I didn't know how to export & open zip files on the software 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

And on top of that, there wasn't any proper structure on how one should actually learn it online(didn't find one until Alex's book). Coming from a place where most people don't even have email adresses was a problem🤦‍♂️ Having Alex's book as a guide was quite helpful. It made things make sense.
I also appreciate how he's condensed the work in a simple easy to read format, though it can get a little bit technical for non-techies.

Compared to the AnKing guide which was full of hilarious memes 😁😂😂 I kinda like Alex Vermeer's guide book coz it's more direct & has several references to related resources such as those of Piotr Wozniak.

[Epos Opus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Title: Anki Essentials
Author: Alex Vermeer
Publisher: —
Format: Ebook
Pages: 120
Language: English
Isbn: —
Published: 2013
Read and review: 2025
Stars: ⭐⭐⭐⭐(4)
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Key learnings: Using Anki to learn. Philosophy behind learning.
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Anki Essentials by Alex Vermeer is a book explaining the basics and some more advanced stuff when using Anki. Even though the book is 12 years old now, I still feel - and what I can remember - most of the things he explained in the book still were similar on Anki now. So it’s not super outdated.

The book is not only about using Anki as Vermeer explains a lot of the philosophy behind the learning process, giving many useful examples and tips. Vermeer encourages you to put some thought behind the way you learn and he explains how to do it with Anki.

[Emanuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many people tout resources like this as ‘what the Anki manual should have been’ and elevate the 20 rules as if they were the new Ten Commandments. I find both of these perspectives to be disproportionate. Both of these are okay, but nothing exceptional. You can get by fine without them.

If you have decent technical skills, I don’t think this guide is for you. Instead, I suggest reading Andy Matuschak’s ‘How to Write Good Prompts’ and trying to create some simple flashcards in Anki—perhaps about Matuschak's article (ironic as it may be).

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

A helpful primer on how to use Anki or use Anki better. It's a relatively quick read and offers helpful tips. You'll still need to refer to the usual Help section but this is a curated tour to get started or up your game.

[JP Douma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best Anki tutorial I've read

Well worth the money. Serves both as an introduction as well as a reference to Anki. Anki is a powerful study companion to remember all those books you are studying.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though I'm already rather familiar with Anki, I found a few helpful hints that made this book worth the read. Lots of cool shortcuts, and card creation techniques. If you're just diving into Anki this would be worth your time.

[Akashic Records · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great card for guidance on custom card creation

[Vũ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Đây thật sự là một cuốn sách rất hay cho những ai muốn bắt đầu sử dụng Anki. Không chỉ thế dây là con là một trong những cuốn Ebook có cách trình bày rất đẹp. Thông tin trong cuốn sách được trình bày rất hợp lý từ thấp đến cao giúp ta có thể nắm rõ toàn bộ tính năng của Anki.

[John Tabbone]

going to try this!