Turn a photo of a menu, textbook page or handwritten list into flashcards
You'll get up to 50 flashcards made from the words in a photo, either as a new deck or added to one you already have.
What you need
- A Vocards account, on the web or in the iOS or Android app.
- An internet connection.
- A photo. On the web it has to be a JPEG, PNG or WebP file under 10 MB. On iOS and Android you can take it with the camera or pick it from your gallery.
- AI credits. Every account gets 500 free every 30 days. A photo deck is charged for the AI processing it actually uses, so there's no fixed price per deck or per card.
Before you take the photo
Vocards reads the words in the picture, so a sharp, straight-on shot works best. It also looks for your own markings:
- Words you've highlighted, underlined or circled are picked first.
- A handwritten or printed word list is kept as you wrote it. Only obvious typos are fixed.
- A photo with no text works too. The cards name the things you can see in it.
1. Open the create form
Click Add (+) in the header, choose New deck, then Describe a topic. The photo goes into the same form as a topic. If you don't have a deck yet, there are no tabs: the sheet opens straight on the new-deck options.
Note: On iOS and Android, tap the Add button (a +) on Home, then New deck and Describe a topic.
Keep the form on Create and auto-fill, where it opens.
2. Choose the two languages
Set I speak to the language you want the translations in. Set I'm learning to the language of the words in the photo. The front of every card is in the language you're learning.
3. Attach the photo
Under What do you want to learn?, click Attach file at the bottom of the field and pick the image. You can also drag the file onto the field. A thumbnail appears in the field, and the button changes to Change file.
The field holds one attachment. Picking another file replaces the first.
Note: On iOS and Android the field has three buttons: Take photo, Add from gallery and Attach file. Take photo asks for camera access the first time, and lets you crop the shot before it's attached. Once a photo is in, the field's label reads "What do you want to learn? (optional)".
4. Say what to focus on (optional)
With a photo attached, the text field is optional. Leave it empty and Vocards picks the vocabulary itself. Type a short note to steer it, for example "Focus on the food vocabulary from this menu", "Extract only the verbs from this page" or "Create cards from the highlighted words".
If you do type a note, make it at least 3 characters.
5. Set the number of cards and the level
- Maximum number of cards: 5 to 50, starting at 10. Vocards takes up to that many words from the photo.
- Difficulty Level: optional. It guides which words are picked and how the example sentences are written.
Under More options, Deck Name can stay empty. The deck is then named after the cards once they're written.
6. Create the deck
Click Create. The button shows Uploading... while the photo is sent, then the app takes you to Home.
The new deck appears there as a tile marked Building. Its title is the Deck Name you set, or else the note you typed. With neither, it's called "Image vocabulary", in the language you speak. From a photo, all the cards are written in one go, so the tile doesn't count them up. When it's done, View Deck on the tile opens the deck.
You don't have to wait on the page. The cards are written on the server, so you can leave or close the app.
Note: On iOS and Android, tap Create. The deck shows up on Home under Building.
Add photo cards to a deck you already have
- Open the deck and click Add Cards.
- Switch to Generate many.
- Choose Describe a topic or add a file.
- Click Attach file and pick the photo. Add a note if you want one.
- Set Maximum number of cards and click Create Cards.
The deck's own languages are used. Vocards is given the words already in the deck and asked to leave them out. The new cards are added to it when they're ready.
Note: On iOS and Android, tap the + at the top of the deck, then Generate many and Describe a topic or add a file. Use Take photo or Add from gallery, then tap Create Cards.
What you'll see
Each card has:
- the word or phrase on the front, in the language you're learning
- its translation on the back, or a definition if both languages are the same
- one or two example sentences, each with a translation in a two-language deck
- the part of speech, the register (such as formal or informal) and a note on when it's used
- in a Japanese, Chinese or Cantonese deck, a reading of the front (furigana, pinyin or Jyutping), shown above the characters once you turn the card over (more on readings)
The cards go straight into the deck. There's no separate step to accept them first. To change or remove one, open the deck and edit it as you would any other card.
Both sides can be played aloud, with two exceptions: Persian and Uzbek have no audio, so a Persian or Uzbek side of a deck can't be played. Catalan, Afrikaans, Galician, Basque and Icelandic use a plainer standard voice.
Vocards deletes the photo from its server once the cards are written. A photo that isn't used is removed after about 30 minutes.
Limits
- One photo per deck or per batch. To use several pages, add them to the same deck one at a time with Generate many.
- Up to 50 cards per photo.
- 20 photo uploads an hour. The count is shared with Kindle and Google Play Books imports, and it starts again an hour after the first of them.
- A photo of up to 10 MB. On the web it must be JPEG, PNG or WebP. The iOS and Android apps convert the photo to JPEG before sending it.
- A note of up to 500 characters, if you add one. For a new deck it also needs at least 3.
If something goes wrong
| You see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| "That file type isn't supported. Attach .txt, .csv, .md, .docx or an image (.jpg, .png, .webp)." | The file isn't a JPEG, PNG or WebP. A photo saved as .heic is one example. | Save or export the photo as JPEG and attach it again, or use the iOS or Android app, which converts it for you. |
| "Image must be under 10MB" | The file is bigger than 10 MB. | Crop or resize the photo and attach it again. |
| "File must be under 10MB" on iOS or Android | The photo is bigger than 10 MB after conversion. | Crop the photo, or take it again at a lower resolution. |
| "Camera permission is required" on iOS or Android | Vocards isn't allowed to use the camera. | Allow camera access for Vocards in your phone's settings, or pick the photo with Add from gallery. |
| Paused – out of credits on the deck's tile | Your credits ran out. | Wait for your 500 free credits to come back, or click Get Credits: it opens a form for feedback about Vocards, at least 20 characters long. If the feedback is accepted, you get 500 credits. That works once per calendar month, and feedback that's too thin or unreadable is turned down so you can try again. Credits can't be bought. Once you have credits again, start over from the photo rather than clicking Resume, which can carry on without the picture: close the tile with its ✕ and create the deck again. |
| "Out of credits" after adding photo cards to a deck | Your credits ran out, so no cards were added. The credits form opens by itself. | Give feedback for credits there, or wait for your free credits to come back, then add the photo again. |
| "Something went wrong. Please try again." on the tile or under the form | The upload or the generation failed. | Close the tile with its ✕ and try again. |
| Fewer cards than you asked for | Maximum number of cards is an upper limit. A photo with few words gives fewer cards. | Photograph a fuller page, or add more cards to the deck from another photo. |
| "This feature is unavailable in offline mode" when you tap the + or Create on iOS or Android | You're offline. | Connect and try again. |
Once the deck has cards, start learning it: Your first learning session.