Now that the deck has been created online, it is ready to be downloaded to your device. I will be using the iPod version of the app for instruction purposes, but the procedure should be the same for smartphones as well.
Go to the Flashcards Deluxe app on your iPod/smartphone and open it. The screen that you will initially see will be a blank white background, and no decks uploaded. The header says above the white background reads “Decks”. To the right of the header, there will be two buttons: one that is a plus sign and another that says “Edit”. Tap the plus button.
After you have tapped the plus button, you will be taken to a screen that looks like this:
From this screen, you will select the private deck option and be led to a screen that is titled “Private Deck”. This is where the deck code you created will come in. On this screen, you will type in the code that you created for your flashcards. Note: to do this your Wi-Fi must be on and you must be connected to the internet.
On the “Private Deck” screen there is a option that says “Deck Code”. Once you tap this option, a screen will appear that will allow you to type in the deck code. Once you have finished entering your deck code, tap the “Save” button at the top right hand corner. Once you tap save, you will be taken back to the “Private Deck” screen. Tap the “Download Cards” button and your cards should download from the Flashcards Deluxe website. Your deck should now appear in the main screen. Repeat this process to download all of your decks to your device.
Organizing Your Decks
While this a wonderful application for studying, there are some minor complaints I do have about the application. One being that you cannot rearrange the decks once you upload them to the iPod/smartphone. This may not be a problem if the order in which your decks appear does not matter; however, for my Japanese flashcards, I needed them to be arranged by the level of the book and chapter number. If there was a correction I needed to make to the excel document and then re-downloaded the cards, that deck would appear at the bottom of the list, and I could not move it.
However I have found a way around this slightly irritating feature. Creating a folder for your flashcards is a wonderful way to keep them organized and when you place them in the folder the order in which you click the decks is the order that they will appear inside the folder. Creating a folder is very easy and worth the trouble if you have a lot of decks to organize from different classes.
- How you go about making a folder is, tap the “+” button in the top right hand corner at the start menu. Here, that same menu will appear where you added the decks themselves.
- Scroll down, and after the option that says “Combination Deck”, there will be an option that reads “New Folder”.
- A menu screen will appear that will ask you to name the folder. Once you have named the folder, tap save. This will take you back to the previous menu, where you will then click “Create Folder”. After you have clicked “Create Folder”, another screen will appear that has all of your flashcard decks in a list. The decks you click will be the decks you include in the folder. If order matters, be sure you select them in the order in which you want them to appear. Once you have selected the decks you want in the folder, just click the “Decks” button in the top left hand corner. This will take you back to the main menu, where you should see your newly created folder.
Now, if you don’t need a deck anymore or need to upload a new version of it, and get rid of the older version you’ll have to delete the deck. There are a couple of different ways you can go about deleting a deck. One way to delete a deck is to place your finger on the deck you want to delete, and slide your finger to left. A red button will appear on the right hand side of the flashcard deck that says “Delete”. Tap this option and the deck should be removed.
Another way to delete a deck is to click the “Edit” button, which is at the top right hand corner. When you tap this button, red circles with white horizontal lines through the middle will appear next to all of the flashcards. Tap the red circle next to the deck(s) you want to get rid of. When you tap on the circle, it will rotate and the horizontal white line will then be vertical. Once you click on the circle, the “Delete” button will appear and you can click the button and the deck should disappear. Note: You cannot select more than one deck at a time to be deleted (sad but true).
To get rid of a folder is the same as getting rid of a deck; HOWEVER, you have to delete all of the flashcards inside of the folder BEFORE you can delete the folder. If you do not delete the decks before deleting the folder then you will get an error message that reads, “You can’t delete a folder when decks are still inside”. NOTE: When you delete a deck in a folder it is completely deleted from the device and will need to be re-uploaded.
To avoid re-uploading all your flashcards you can move the deck from the folder back to the main menu. How you do this is by clicking the “Edit” button in the Decks Menu. Click on the folder and uncheck the decks that you want to remove from the folder. After you are finished, click the “Decks” button in the top left-corner and you will return to the main menu. Click the “Done” button in the top-right hand corner. The folder should then have 0 Decks inside of it and then you can go about deleting it like you would a deck.
If you want to delete an individual flashcard, I have not found a particular method for doing it. Other than deleting the card from the original excel document and reloading the deck, I do not know of any other way to delete an individual card in the deck, and I do not think there is a way to do so. Do not quote me on it, but I’ve never had to delete just one card and from the option available, I do not see anything that would readily stand out as being able to delete the a card. But, again do not quote me on it.
