Flashcards Lessons

What are flashcard lessons?

Flashcard lessons are sets of interactive study cards built right inside 5Mins. Each card has a title and a short summary, and you can style cards with themes, background images, and images on the card itself. Flashcards are great for breaking key concepts into bite-sized, swipeable cards that learners can move through quickly.

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🎬 Watch this as a short narrated video

Steps shown in this video

  1. Flashcards turn key facts into quick cards that stick - let's build one from scratch
  2. Choose Create flashcard
  3. Create from scratch starts you with a blank set of three cards
  4. Name the lesson
  5. Type a title straight onto the first card, then a short summary underneath
  6. Now bring the card to life - Add Image
  7. Generate one with AI, no design skills needed
  8. Describe the picture you want in a prompt
  9. Hit Generate, and 5Mins draws it for you in seconds
  10. There's your image, made from that prompt - drop it on the card, then Publish, and the set is ready

Starting a flashcard lesson

When you create a flashcard lesson you'll be asked how you'd like to build it:

  • Create from scratch - Start with a blank template of three cards and build the lesson yourself.

  • Transform your content with AI: Upload a PDF, Word, PowerPoint, video, or audio file and let the AI Transformer draft a set of flashcards for you. Once it's done you land in the editor, where you can review and edit every card before publishing.

Building from scratch (empty flashcards)

Choosing Create from scratch gives you a blank lesson of three empty cards. Nothing is pre-filled, so you build the content yourself:

  1. Select a card and write its title and summary (the summary uses the rich-text editor below).

  2. Add a theme, a background, or an image to the card if you want (all optional).

  3. Use the card toolbar to add a new empty card, duplicate, reorder, or delete cards.

  4. Repeat until your set is complete, then name and publish the lesson.

You can build an entire lesson this way without using AI at any point. You can also mix approaches: start from scratch and add a few AI-generated images, or start with the AI Transformer and add empty cards by hand.

Building your cards

In the flashcard editor you work on one card at a time and can add, duplicate, reorder, or delete cards as you go. For each card you can:

  • Write a rich-text title and summary - Use formatting such as bold, italic, underline, text colour, and bullet or numbered lists to structure the content.

  • Choose a theme - Apply a visual theme to give your cards a consistent look.

  • Add a background image - Upload a JPG or PNG smaller than 9MB, ideally at 720x1280 pixels (portrait), then position it behind the card content.

  • Add an image to the card - Place an image in the foreground and adjust its size and alignment (top or bottom).

Adding images to a card

When you add a card image you have three options:

  • Upload image - Upload your own JPG or PNG, smaller than 9MB.

  • Generate with AI: Describe the image you want and have one generated for you. You can also use Suggest from card to auto-fill the prompt from the card's title and summary, then edit it before generating.

  • Stock Footage - Search the stock image library and pick a ready-made image.

Replacing an image

To swap an image without removing it first, open the image menu (Edit image) and choose Change image. You can replace it from any of the three sources (upload, Generate with AI, or Stock Footage), and the new image takes the place of the old one on the same card. The Align top, Align bottom, and Remove options remain available.

Publishing and learner experience

Once your cards are ready, give the lesson a title and add it to a course. You can also add a quiz to a flashcard lesson from the Quiz tab. Learners then swipe or click through the full set of cards, and the lesson is marked complete when they reach the end.