Card formats overview

DecksMD supports four ways to write cards. Pick whichever matches how you already write notes — you can even mix them in the same file.

However you write it, this is what you get back — a front, a back, and optional notes you can call up during review:

Front

What is photosynthesis?

Back

The process plants use to convert sunlight into chemical energy.

Notes

Happens in the chloroplasts. The reverse reaction is respiration.

One card. The four formats below are four ways of writing it.

Format	Best for	Page
Header + paragraph	The default. A question heading with the answer below.	Header + paragraph
Tables	Lots of short Q&A pairs (vocab, terms, dates).	Tables
Cloze deletions	Fill-in-the-blank from `==highlighted==` text.	Cloze deletions
Image occlusion	Labelling diagrams and anatomy.	Image occlusion

Plus a few extras:

Templates — give table cards a custom styled layout.
Title, reverse & tags — turn a whole file into one card, auto-generate reversed cards, and tag individual cards.
Canvas decks — author cards on an Obsidian Canvas, including spatial cards from the edges you draw between notes.

And two ways to test rather than review:

Exam decks — a task list under a heading becomes a scored multiple-choice question; your other cards become type-in questions.

A few rules that apply everywhere

A file becomes a deck when it carries the #decks tag (or a sub-tag like #decks/spanish). The filename becomes the deck name.
Headings above your configured header level aren’t turned into cards — they’re kept as a breadcrumb path (e.g. Chapter 1 > Section 2) attached to each card for context.
Cards update automatically when you save the file. Deleting and recreating a card with the same front restores its previous learning progress.