Turn a Textbook Chapter into Flashcards with Local Ollama

Why this works

Flashcards work because you retrieve the answer yourself. A local model can draft the question-and-answer pairs from your own chapter; you check each one before you study it.

Step by step

1. Export the chapter textCopy the text into chapter.txt, or OCR the pages first with the Tesseract guide in this directory.
2. Ask for question-answer pairsUse the prompt below. Keep chunks to one or two sections so the model stays accurate.
3. Check each card against the bookVerify every answer on the page. Delete cards that test trivia rather than understanding.
4. Import into your flashcard appExport as a CSV with two columns, front and back, and import it into any spaced-repetition tool that accepts CSV.
5. Review daily for ten minutesShort, frequent sessions beat long cramming sessions.

Copy-paste prompt

From the chapter text below, write 15 flashcards that test understanding, not trivia. Format each as: FRONT ; BACK, one per line, with the back under 25 words. Use only information in the text. Skip any section that is only examples or exercises.

TEXT:
<paste>

Check your result

• Each answer can be found in the source text
• Cards test explanations and relationships, not isolated dates
• The CSV imports cleanly

Pitfalls to avoid

• Models sometimes write confident wrong answers. Treat the draft as a first pass.
• Copyright: keep flashcards for your own study, not for publication.