How to import Anki notes into a reading app

An import here adds words you already studied to your saved vocabulary, so a text does not treat that whole deck as new. It does not turn the deck into a lesson, and it does not keep an example sentence from the card.

Export a notes file from Anki

1. On Anki desktop, open Browse, select the notes, and choose Notes → Export Notes. The format is Notes in Plain Text (.txt).
2. Keep the header Anki writes. It names the separator and the columns, often Front and Back.
3. A .tsv or .csv with a word column and a meaning column works too. A .csv with no separator line is read as commas. Other files default to tabs.
4. Do not upload a packaged deck (.apkg). taihaa accepts .txt, .tsv, and .csv only.

Import it in taihaa

1. Open Settings → Offline & data and choose Import from Anki.
2. Pick the file. The language starts as the one you are studying. You can change it. All 9 languages are available.
3. Check the columns. If the file has Front and Back, those map to the word and the meaning. Otherwise the first column is the word and the second is the meaning. Change either one before you import.
4. Add as Known, which is selected by default, or switch to Learning.
5. Read the counts: to add, already saved, and skipped. A short sample of the rows is on the same screen. Then import.

What is saved

• Each new row stores the word and the meaning as the translation. The context sentence stays empty. Nothing is opened as a lesson.
• Words you already saved are left as they are, including status and review schedule. A repeat inside the file keeps the first row.
• Known stays out of review. That is why it is the default for a deck you already know. Learning becomes due immediately. Review still shows 120 at a time.
• A row with an empty word or an empty meaning is skipped. HTML and sound tags are removed. A cloze note keeps the answer text.
• Mandarin and Cantonese match the characters exactly. Languages written in the Latin alphabet ignore capitals. Japanese import does not merge a conjugated form with its dictionary form, so 食べる and 食べました stay two words if both are in the file. In the reader, a conjugated Japanese word can still match a dictionary form you already saved.

Limits

• Up to 50,000 notes, and up to 10 MB. A file over either limit is refused. Nothing from that file is imported.
• The import needs a connection. It writes to the account you are signed in to.
• There is no cap on how many words you may have saved after a successful import. The 50,000 figure is the size of one file, not a vocabulary ceiling.

Then read something

Open a page you care about. Words you imported as Known are already saved, so you can spend taps on words that actually stop the sentence. How to choose those words is in learn vocabulary while reading. A Mandarin text with pinyin is on the Mandarin reading guide.