Anki is a flashcard software that uses spaced repetition. I like Anki because it supports LaTeX, which makes it easy to make flashcards with math formulas, definitions, and theorems that you want to remember. Anki also has a nice Android application that lets me study on the go! This repository contains some simple functions and scripts for transforming specifically-structured LaTeX files into flashcards that can be imported into Anki.
While you could just type LaTeX into the Anki GUI, I've found that in doing so I lose some valuable parts of my usual LaTeX workflow such as working in my favorite text editor, visually verifying the LaTeX markup by producing pdf files, and retaining an alternative reference point for quick lookups of a theorem I'm thinking about (the TeX file that is the input to this program).
The ankitex command displays the following help text:
NAME
ankitex - transform LaTeX documents into Anki flashcards.
SYNOPSIS
ankitex [-o <output_file>] <latex_files...>
OPTIONS
--help, -h Display this help
--output, -o File to write Anki flashcards to; defaults to flashcards.anki.txt
The output file may be imported to Anki via the File -> Import menu. The output is semicolon delimited: be sure to mark it as such in the input dialog.
Unforunately, LaTeX is too flexible to easily infer which content should be used for the front of a flashcard. In fact, that content may not even be present in the file. For instance, if you are using the popular \theorem environment provided with the amsmath package, the theorem will be automatically numbered when the document is created, but perhaps you would have liked that theorem number as the front of a flashcard. Use of the amsmath \theorem environment also does not require you to provide a title for theorems, but such titles are almost required for the front of a flashcard! So, the code in this repository assumes some imposed structure on your LaTeX files to be able to parse flashcards. In particular, the default parser that I have provided assumes that LaTeX content is organized like this:
\theorem{theorem-title}{
theorem-text
...
}
such as in the example:
\theorem{Definition 1.2.1 Sigma Algebra}{
A collection of subsets of $S$ is called a \emph{sigma algebra} (or \emph{Borel field}) denoted by $\mathcal{B}$, if it satisifes the following three properties:
\begin{enumerate}
\item $\emptyset \in \mathcal{B}$
\item If $A \in \mathcal{B}$, then $A^c \in \mathcal{B}$
\item If $A_1, A_2 \ldots \in \mathcal{B}$, then $\cup_{i=1}^{\infty} \in \mathcal{B}$
\end{enumerate}
}
because this is how I organize my notes. Other parsers may be provided by overriding Ankitex::Parser.