Cards, notes, and fields

A note is the source record you edit. Its fields hold related pieces of information. A card is one review prompt generated from that note by a template.

This model lets one fact produce more than one direction without duplicating the source text.

One note can produce several cards

Consider a language note with these fields:

Field	Value
Term	bonjour
Translation	hello
Example	Bonjour, Marie.

A recognition template can ask for the translation of bonjour. A second template can ask for the French term meaning hello. The two generated cards are siblings because they share one note.

If the example is wrong, edit it once on the note. Every sibling that uses the Example field receives the correction.

Fields should have one job

Use a field for each reusable piece of information. Prefer Term, Translation, Definition, Example, and Source over a single field containing a formatted essay.

Separate fields help you:

• reuse the same data in different templates;
• search by meaningful content;
• hide optional sections when a value is empty;
• change presentation without rewriting notes;
• import and export structured collections more safely.

Field order is significant in the current collection format. Repeto protects unsafe structural changes on note types that already have notes. Rename fields deliberately, and preview the result before saving a reordered or reduced field set.

Cards hold scheduling state

The note owns content and tags. Each card owns its own scheduling history: state, due time, interval, repetitions, lapses, and FSRS memory data. Sibling cards can therefore be due on different days even though their text comes from the same note.

Suspending a card removes that card from normal study without deleting the shared note. Deleting a note removes all cards generated from it, so confirm note-level deletion carefully.

Edit during review

Press E in the reviewer to edit the current note’s fields. Saving returns you to the same session. This is useful for fixing a typo or making an answer precise at the moment you notice the problem.

For structural edits, use the deck editor or note type manager instead of trying to encode layout into every answer.

Tags, marks, and flags

Tags describe the note and are intended for reusable organization and search. A mark is the special marked tag and therefore appears on every sibling generated from that note. Flags describe one individual card and use colors 1–7, or 0 for no flag.

The reviewer can mark a note or set the current card’s flag. The collection browser can search flags and apply card lifecycle actions without confusing card selection with note deletion.

Cards are not deck settings

Moving a card changes where it appears, not the note type or its content. A deck’s scheduling copy determines how cards in that deck are introduced and reviewed. When a parent deck is studied, each card still carries the effective settings of its own home deck.

Next, read Note types and templates to control how fields become fronts and backs.