An Anki alternative for PDFs: fix the import, not the app
People search for an Anki alternative when the tool is not the thing slowing them down. If your course materials arrive as PDFs and slide decks, the bottleneck sits one step earlier — and switching apps does not move it.
Anki is free, open source, and very good at the two things that happen after cards exist: scheduling and review. What it does not do is read your PDFs. So before you change apps, work out which half of the job is actually costing you hours. Usually it is card creation, and that is fixable on its own.
What Anki is genuinely good at
Worth saying plainly, because the rest of this page is about the workflow around it. Anki has been refined for well over a decade, its scheduling is the reference implementation people compare everything else to, syncing between devices via AnkiWeb is free, and the add-on ecosystem means almost any card style someone has wanted already exists. If you are happy typing cards, there is no reason to leave.
The complaint is almost never about review. It is about the ninety minutes between opening a lecture PDF and having anything worth reviewing.
Where a PDF workflow breaks
- Nothing imports. Slides, scanned handouts, textbook chapters — the facts are in prose and layout, not in fields.
- Deciding is the expensive part. A 40-page chapter contains maybe 30 card-worthy facts. Finding them is judgement, and doing it by hand is why the deck never gets made.
- Copy-paste produces bad cards. Pasted paragraphs get a question mark bolted on the front, and a card that reads as a paragraph cannot be answered in five seconds.
- Review is a different session. Making cards at 1am and reviewing them at 1am are two different mental states. The second one is what works.
What to actually check in an alternative
If you are going to move, move for the import. Test these five things with your own worst file, not a demo:
- 1. Can it read your format at all? PDF, DOCX, pasted text, and — if you study in a second language — mixed Chinese and English pages with formulas inline.
- 2. Does it produce cards you can edit? Auto-generated cards are a draft. If you cannot fix the phrasing in place, the draft is worthless.
- 3. Does one card hold one idea? Open the output on a dense page and count how many cards have two facts glued together.
- 4. Can you get your material out? Downloadable output matters. Anything you cannot export is a hostage, and the export should survive the tool.
- 5. What does it cost per exam, not per month? A subscription is a bad shape for a six-week revision push.
Where Lookfornotes fits, honestly
Lookfornotes reads a PDF, a URL, pasted notes or a Word file and gives you a draft flashcard set, a summary, a mind map or a practice test. On a lecture PDF, a draft set costs 5 points and a summary costs 2, and a new account starts with 30 points.
It is not an Anki replacement, and it is not trying to be one. Three limits worth knowing before you sign up:
- No set importer. There is no way to bring an existing deck in, so your Anki history stays where it is.
- No mobile app. The workspace is a web app. If you review on the train and that is non-negotiable, use Anki for review.
- Output is a downloadable PDF, not an .apkg. You can read it, print it, or retype the cards you decide to keep.
The workflow most people land on
Use the generator for the part you hate and Anki for the part it is good at. Upload the chapter, take the draft set, cut it down, keep the twenty cards you would defend in an exam, and put those wherever you already review. You keep your streak and your settings; you just stop retyping a chapter to get twenty cards.
Which is also the answer to the question people type into search bars: the alternative is not a different review app, it is a shorter route from document to draft. If your material is lecture slides rather than a textbook, the same pass applies — see lecture notes into flashcards.
Test it on the chapter you are avoiding
Upload one PDF and look at the draft set. Judging the output takes two minutes; a full set costs 5 points, and a new account starts with 30.
FAQ
Is Lookfornotes a free Anki alternative?
A new account gets 30 free points with no card required. Generating a flashcard set from a document costs 5 points, so the free allowance covers several documents before you decide anything. After that, points come in one-off packs rather than a subscription.
Can I import my existing Anki deck?
No. There is no set importer. Cards you generate can be downloaded as a PDF, but there is no .apkg export, so expect to keep your existing decks in Anki and use Lookfornotes for the generation step.
Does it work with scanned PDFs and slide decks?
It reads the document as uploaded and works with the text layer. A pure image scan with no text layer is the weak case — check your file first, since that is a limitation of the file rather than a preference.
Can it handle Chinese or mixed-language course material?
Yes, including mixed Chinese and English pages such as HK textbooks and past papers.
Do flashcards still need spaced repetition?
Yes. Generating cards does not replace the schedule. Whatever app you review in, the value comes from seeing a card again shortly before you would forget it.