Pleco 2.0 Instruction Manual : Flashcards
For users upgrading from PlecoDict 1.0, see the 2.0 Flashcard System Introduction for an shorter explanation of the major changes / new concepts in the Pleco 2.0 flashcard system.
Pleco 2.0 includes a powerful built-in flashcard system that makes it easy for you to learn new vocabulary by creating flashcards based on dictionary entries. This means you can create new cards extremely quickly, since all you have to do is select the right word and Pleco can fill in the Pinyin / definition for you automatically; it also helps with remembering new words you encounter, since you can easily add a word to your flashcard pool as you're looking up its meaning in the dictionary. It's also been designed specifically for learning Chinese, which means we've been able to add test modes for Chinese-related subjects like tones and stroke order, and we've been able to optimize other common flashcard system features to work better with Chinese; for example, our multiple-choice tests always make sure that the number of characters in the headword match the number of syllables in all of the possible Pinyin answers for it, which a non-Chinese-oriented system might not be able to do, and our flashcards keep track of both the simplified- and traditional-character versions of words.
Here's the basic process for using Pleco flashcards:
And here are some important terms that will be used throughout this manual:
Flashcard: A single vocabulary word which you'd like to learn. Flashcards can be based on dictionary entries or can have their own custom headwords and definitions. The same pool of flashcards is used throughout your copy of Pleco; a single flashcard can be accessed from any profile or scorefile, it's not bound to any particular one.
Score: A rating of how well you've learned a given flashcard. Pleco uses these scores to determine how often to show you each card; cards which you remember well will show up less often than cards that you have a hard time remembering, and cards that you've practiced a lot will show up less often than cards that you've just started learning.
Category: A label which can be applied to groups of flashcards in order to organize them, like putting physical flashcards in a specific "deck" or "box". These replace the flashcard "Lists" from PlecoDict 1.0. A flashcard can belong to an unlimited number of categories. You can create / delete / reorganize categories in the Manage Categories screen.
You can use categories to organize flashcards in whatever way you like; for example, creating one category for each chapter in a textbook, so that you can easily review a specific set of chapters for a class exam. Since a flashcard can belong to more than one category, categories can also be used to remind yourself of particular details about a card; for example, you could create a category for words that you're not sure about the meaning of and need to ask a teacher/friend for help with, or one for words that people have told you are slang, or are only used in a particular region.
Profile: A collection of flashcard test settings. You can use profiles to make it easy to switch between different ways of reviewing flashcards; for example, one profile for multiple-choice tests and another for free-answer tests, or one to test yourself on characters and another to test yourself on Pinyin, or one to test yourself on HSK vocabulary and another that only tests words you've just learned in the past few weeks. You can create / delete profiles in the Manage Profiles screen.
Profiles are just collections of settings; they do not correspond to a specific set of cards or categories. You can access any card and any category regardless of which profile you're using. A profile is just a convenient way to remember a test configuration for later use, so that you don't have to go and manually reconfigure everything each time you want to run a particular type of test; most of your flashcard data is independent of which profile you're using.
Scorefile: A collection of flashcard scores; i.e., how well you've learned the material on each card, along with a detailed history of how well you've remembered it on recent tests. You can create / delete scorefiles in the Manage Scorefiles screen.
Scorefiles are a unique feature of Pleco's flashcard system; they allow flashcards to have different scores for different types of test, instead of each card having just one score that applies to every test.
For example, if you've been studying Chinese for a long time but aren't very good at remembering Mandarin tones, you could set up a new scorefile just for testing yourself on how well you remember tones, and associate that scorefile with a profile you'd created for Tone Practice tests. Every card would start out in that new scorefile with the same low score, as if you'd just created it. As you studied these cards in Tone Practice, the cards that you remembered well, i.e. the cards for which you already knew / easily learned the tones, would see their scores increase quickly, while the cards you did poorly with, i.e. the ones on which you couldn't remember / didn't know the tones, would see their scores stay the same or increase more slowly. So as a result, the cards that came up most often in Tone Practice would be the ones that you had the most difficulty remembering the tones for, because those would be the cards with the lowest scores. However, the results of these tone practice sessions would not affect the scores in any other scorefile. So for another profile - say one for studying a card's meaning / definition - that linked to a different scorefile, the scores would continue to reflect how well you remembered that material, instead of how well you remembered tones; the cards you'd be seeing most often in definition tests would be the ones you had the most trouble remembering the definitions for, and getting a card incorrect on a tone test would not make it come up any more often on a definition test.
Each scorefile can be shared by multiple profiles, so it's possible to have several related profiles (say, a self-scored definition test and a multiple-choice definition test) share the same scorefile; in that case, the scores in it would be updated / shared between those test types. Each profile, however, can only link to one scorefile - it uses the information in the scorefile to select which cards to test you on and it updates the information in the scorefile based on how well you remember each card. You can change which scorefile a profile links to when you initially create the profile in the Manage Profiles screen, and you can change that scorefile selection later in the Scoring tab of Advanced Settings. Scorefiles are just collections of scores, they don't have any specific settings / test types / categories associated with them; the only reason why a scorefile might correspond to a particular test type would be because of the profile(s) that linked to it.
Having made you read through all of that, we should point out that it's not necessary to understand profiles or scorefiles at all in order to use Pleco's flashcard system; if you simply ignore them, you'll be able to use Pleco 2.0's flashcards just like those in PlecoDict 1.0 (or most other flashcard programs), manually setting up each test and only keeping one score for each card. You'll still have access to all of Pleco's test types, and your tests will still be optimized to show you cards that you need more help with more often. You can always start using profiles/scorefiles later on as you advance further in your Chinese studies.
Database
The flashcards you create will be stored a database file called "Pleco Flashcards.pqb" on Windows Mobile or "PlecoFlash" on Palm OS. On Windows Mobile it'll be in your My Documents folder; on Palm OS you can access it using PlecoMover. See the installation manual (WM here or Palm here) for instructions on how to back up / restore your flashcard database.
On Windows Mobile, we strongly recommend that you leave the flashcard database in your handheld's internal memory and don't move it to a flash memory card; while Pleco can still find / access the database from a card, it will likely be a lot slower, and may occasionally disappear or become inaccessible (requiring you to reboot your handheld to bring it back). However, you can safely move it to the \\Program Files\Pleco directory in your handheld's internal memory if you prefer to keep your My Documents folder clear, or create a \\My Documents\Pleco directory and put the file inside of that; just make sure to exit Pleco completely (using the Quit command in the Menu menu) before moving the file so that Pleco won't keep trying to load the file from its old location.
To access Pleco's flashcard system, choose "Open Flashcards" from the "Modules" menu. To get to that menu on Palm OS, tap on the Menu button at the top right corner of the screen (the rightmost button in the Command Bar); on Windows Mobile, just tap on the "Modules" menu at the bottom of the screen to open it. (you can also assign "Open Flashcards" to a toolbar button in the Toolbar panel of Preferences).
Opening the flashcard system will take you to this screen:
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This screen provides an easy way to get at all of the major functions of Pleco's flashcard system. Don't be alarmed by all of the buttons; most of them can be ignored until you're comfortable with the basics of using flashcards.
The buttons in the top half of the screen are all about studying cards:
The Profile popup list at the top of the screen lets you select the active flashcard profile. The profile selected here will determine which profile is used in the New Flashcard Session and Advanced Settings screens, and scores in the Statistics and Manage Flashcards screens will be drawn from whatever scorefile that profile links to. Tap on the Manage button next to the Profile popup list to go to the Manage Profiles screen, from which you can easily create / rearrange / delete profiles.
If you're not interested in using flashcard profiles, you can ignore the Profile / Manage controls.
The New Flashcard Session button starts a new flashcard test session; tap on that button to bring up the New Session screen, choose your number of cards / test type / card categories, and tap Start Session to begin testing.
The Advanced button configures additional settings for your flashcard session - you can adjust things like the display layout, scoring system, and card selection method here.
The Statistics button takes you to the flashcard Statistics screen, giving you a summary of how many cards you've studied and how their scores are distributed.
The buttons in the bottom half of the screen are about creating / organizing cards:
Manage Flashcards takes you to the Manage Flashcards screen, where you can create, delete, and reorganize your flashcards.
Organize Flashcards takes you to the Organize Flashcards screen, where you can easily move flashcards between categories.
Manage Categories takes you to the Manage Categories screen, where you can create and delete flashcard categories.
Import lets you import a list of flashcards or vocabulary words from a text or XML file.
Export lets you export your flashcards to a text or XML file, as a backup or to share with other users.
The easiest way to create a new flashcard is to tap on the Add to Flashcards 
button, available in the main dictionary interface, Popup Definition screen, Instant Access screen, and the document reader. Tapping on that button in any of those screens will add the current dictionary entry to your flashcard database.
By default, new flashcards created with the Add to Flashcards button will be added to the default category you've configured in the Manage Categories screen. (this can be set to "Uncategorized" if you'd rather flashcards not belong to any category initially) You can override this by tapping-and-holding on the Add to Flashcards button instead of just tapping on it; that will bring up a popup list that lets you select exactly which category to place this card into. (it will not change the default category for other new cards, however; for that, you'll have to either change the default category in Manage Categories or tap-hold on the button again)
You can create a flashcard that doesn't link to a dictionary entry, i.e. one with a custom headword and definition, through the Manage Flashcards or Organize Flashcards screen - tap on the New Flashcard button in that screen (located just below the Card List in Manage and at the bottom left corner of the screen in Organize) to create a brand new card and bring up the Edit Card screen to edit it. As with flashcards created with Add to Flashcards, flashcards created this way will automatically be added to the default category you've configured in Manage Categories.
By default, Pleco only allows you to create one flashcard with a given headword and pronunciation, so that you won't end up wasting time studying the same word twice. It does allow duplicated cards with the same characters but different pronunciations, or with the same simplified characters but different traditional characters; a card is only considered a duplicate if the simplified headword, traditional headword and pronunciation all match.
If Pleco is configured to flash a confirmation message whenever you create a new card, it will flash "Duplicate Card" instead of "Card Added" when it refuses to add a card because it's a duplicate of an existing card. However, it will still add the existing card to the default category (or the category you selected from the popup list) if it's not already in that category.
When editing a card (either a new Custom card or an existing card) in the Edit Card screen, an alert will come up when you try to save the card if doing that would result in a duplicated card; you can cancel the edit or allow the card to be duplicated.
If you prefer that Pleco allow duplicate cards, set "Duplicate Card Handling" to "Allow" in the Flashcards panel of Preferences. Set it to "Keep Cats" (default setting) if you want Pleco to skip creating duplicate cards but still add them to the default / selected categories, or "Skip" if you want it to skip creating duplicate cards and not make any changes to the existing cards' categories.
Pleco includes a powerful flashcard import function that allows you to share / transfer just about any type of flashcard data between systems, populate your flashcard database with premade vocabulary lists, or bring in flashcards from an older version of Pleco. Of particular note is the fact that it can automatically match up words in vocabulary lists to entries in Pleco's built-in dictionaries; this allows you to generate a full set of flashcards from just a list of words.
See the upgrade guide for a streamlined set of instructions on how to import cards from version 1.0 of Pleco into version 2.0. See the Installing Add-Ons section of the Pleco installation manual (Windows Mobile here, Palm OS here) for information on how to copy flashcard files from your computer to your handheld.
To perform a flashcard import, open the flashcard system and tap on the Import button to get this screen:
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This works a bit differently on Palm OS and Windows Mobile on account of their different file systems.
On Windows Mobile, tap on the Choose File button at the top of the screen to bring up the standard Windows Mobile file open dialog. Select "XML" or "Text" from the "Type" popup list depending on the type of file you're going to import; XML files (like the ones generated by the 1.0-to-2.0 converter utility) have file extension .xml, Text files have the file extension .txt. (most of the premade flashcard lists currently on our website are text files) Scroll through the list of files until you find the one you want, then tap on it to select it.
On Palm OS, select the type of file you're importing from the Source popup list at the top of the screen:
After choosing a file type, scroll through the list of files to find the one you want and tap on the file to select it. If you're not sure what type of file you want, just try all of the Source options until you see it listed.
The remaining options are the same on both platforms.
If you're importing a Text or PalmDoc file, the first two options you'll see are Card Language and Text Encoding; otherwise the first option will be Missing Entries (since languages and encodings are automatically detected in XML files).
For Card Language, choose the language of the flashcard list you're importing; in most cases this will be "Chinese-English." ("English-Chinese" would only be for a list of English vocabulary words)
For Text Encoding, in most cases you'll want to select "UTF-8" - that's the format used by all of the text files on our website. However, some PalmDoc flashcard files for the older version of Pleco were encoded in GB-2312 instead, so if you're using one of those old files you may want to select GB-2312 encoding. Most websites offering Pleco flashcard lists will tell you which encoding they're in. When you begin a text or PalmDoc file import, Pleco brings up a screen which shows you what the start of the file looks like in the selected text encoding, so you can double-check that you the encoding is correct before you proceed with the import - if that screen comes up filled with gibberish, cancel the import and try a different encoding.
After that is an option for Missing Entries - this determines how Pleco handles imported cards which don't supply their own definitions and for which Pleco can't find any definitions in any of its built-in dictionaries. Select "Skip" to ignore these cards, or "Create Blank" to create them without definitions. You can find / edit those cards later by doing a search for "incomplete" in the Manage Flashcards screen.
The next option is for Ambiguous Entries - this determines what Pleco will do when it encounters a card that matches more than one dictionary entry (in the first dictionary that it finds a match in). Select "Use First" to use whatever entry it finds first; "Skip" to not create the card at all (not recommended), or "Prompt" to pop up a dialog box allowing you to select the correct dictionary entry for the new card.
The final option is for Duplicate Entries - this determines how Pleco will handle imported cards which are duplicates of existing ones. Select "Allow" to create the card anyway (ignoring the fact that it's a duplicate), "Skip" to not create the card, "Merge Categories" to not create a new card but add the old (duplicated) card to whatever categories the new card belongs to, "Replace" to replace the old card with the new one (overwriting its scores, category assignments, etc), and "Prompt" to pop up a dialog box for each duplicated card letting you decide what you want to do with it. We recommend "Merge Categories" unless you have a particular reason to prefer another option - it generally provides the best results.
Tap on the Dicts button at the bottom of the screen to select which dictionaries Pleco will use when attempting to fill in the new flashcards with dictionary definitions:
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Definition Source lets you choose where you want Pleco to draw its definitions from in the imported flashcards. "Prefer File" (default option) will use the definition provided in the flashcard file if there is one, but otherwise will attempt to find a definition for the word in one of its dictionaries. "Prefer Dicts" will try to find a dictionary definition for the card first, but fall back on the definition in the file (if there is one) if it can't find a matching dictionary entry. "Dicts Only" will only use dictionary definitions and ignore any definitions in the file; "File Only" will only use definitions in the file and not try to match up any words to dictionary entries.
Store imported defns in user dict - with this option enabled, for flashcards that include their own definitions (rather than linking to dictionary entries), those definitions will be stored in your user dictionary database instead of in the flashcard database, letting you search for / edit them like other user dictionary entries. If you've created more than one user dictionary, Pleco will use the first one listed in the Dictionary Order screen (see below), or if no user dictionaries are listed there, it'll choose the one that appears highest in the sort order in Manage Dictionaries.
The list at the left side of the screen shows which dictionaries the importer is going to search, and in what order, while the list on the right side of the screen shows unused dictionaries. Select an entry in the right list and tap Add to add it to the list of dictionaries to search, or select an entry in the left list and tap Remove to remove it from the list, Up to move it up in the list or Down to move it down; the importer will search the dictionaries in that order during the import. Tap the Done button to return to the main Import screen.
Once you've finished configuring everything, tap on the Start button to begin the import. The counter at the bottom of the screen (Windows Mobile) or the top right corner of the screen (Palm) will let you keep track of how many cards have been imported. It's normal that the total number of cards in the counter might be less than the number of cards in the import file, since the counter doesn't include cards that are skipped over (duplicates etc). It may take as long as an hour or two to finish importing all of the cards, particularly when using an XML file (which contains more information and hence takes longer to import), so be patient. You can cancel the import midway through by tapping on the Stop button. (replaces Start while the import is running)
If you're unhappy with the results of an import, or you stop it midway through, tap on the Undo button to undo it - this will delete any newly created cards / categories and remove any new category assignments.
Use the Export screen to export your flashcards to text / XML files in order to back them up, share them with others, or transfer them to another program. (you can also back up your entire flashcard database using the steps in the installation manual (Windows Mobile here, Palm OS here), which in most cases will likely be easier / faster than backing it up with an export)
Open the flashcard system and tap on the Export button to bring up the Export screen:
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Use the Export control at the top of the screen to select which cards you want to export; "all cards" exports all of your flashcards, "cards in categories" exports only cards in the specified categories, and "user dictionary entries" exports all of the entries from your user-created dictionaries (we haven't developed a separate export format for those yet, so this is currently the only way to get them out of Pleco). With "cards in categories," tap on the "Set" button that appears after you choose that option to select which categories you'd like to include in the export.
If you're bringing up the Export screen from Manage Flashcards, there'll be an additional "search results" option here, which exports the cards listed in the current Manage Flashcards search result.
File Format lets you select which file format you'd like to export your flashcards in. An "XML File" can include all of your flashcard data - statistics, which dictionaries each card links to, etc - but will only work in Pleco 2.0; it won't work in 1.0 at all and may be difficult to open / import in other flashcard programs. A "Text File" or "PalmDoc File" includes only a list of words, their pronunciations, their definitions (only for cards which link to free dictionaries), and which categories they belong to, but can be imported onto PlecoDict 1.0 as well as 2.0 and can easily be opened with a text editor (or possibly in another flashcard program).
On Palm OS, the options for "File Format" have "(Int)" and "(Card)" after their names - this lets you choose whether you want the file to be stored in internal memory or on an SD card. PalmDoc files are similar to text files, but are formatted so that they can be stored in a Palm's internal memory (which text files can't be). Below the File Format option you'll see a field to enter the filename or the path to the file, and if you're exporting to an SD card, below that field you'll see an option to select which memory card the new file will be stored on. File paths on Palm OS begin with a forward slash and use additional forward slashes to separate directory names, so for example if you wanted to name the file "flash.txt" and put it inside of the "Palm" folder, the path name for that would be "/Palm/flash.txt". Make sure to put ".txt" file extension at the end of "Text File (Card)" file names, and ".xml" at the end of "XML File (Card)" names - otherwise Pleco's Import screen may not be able to find the resulting file.
On Windows Mobile, you'll be prompted to enter a filename / save location after you tap on the Start button at the bottom of the screen.
The remaining options are the same on both platforms.
If you're exporting a Text or PalmDoc file, you should see options below the file format / name for Card Language, Text Encoding, and Character Set. Otherwise, the only options visible will be the the Include checkboxes (since languages, encodings, and character sets are automatically detected in XML files).
For Card Language, select whether you want to export your Chinese-to-English or English-to-Chinese cards; it's not possible to combine both in the same file. (in most cases you'll want Chinese-English here, English-Chinese would only be for flashcards with English headwords)
For Text Encoding, "UTF-8" is the best choice in most cases, since it should open seamlessly in most desktop text editors and other programs (which can usually detect automatically that a text file is encoded in UTF-8).
For Character Set, choose "Simplified" to export flashcards with simplified-character headwords, "Traditional" for traditional-character ones or "Both" for both character sets (with the traditional characters in brackets). The "Both" option is incompatible with PlecoDict 1.0's flashcard importer, so if you're exporting flashcards to import into 1.0 you should choose one of the other two options instead.
The Include checkboxes let you select which parts of each flashcard to include in the export file. Categories enables flashcard category names; Text / PalmDoc files are formatted as lists of cards for each category, so cards under more than one category will be exported multiple times. Statistics (only in XML files) outputs card score and review history information - it does this for every scorefile, not just the currently-active one. Card definitions outputs definitions from custom flashcards (but not from dictionary entries). Free dict defns outputs dictionary definitions for cards that link to free (non-encrypted) dictionary databases, including user dictionaries; if you enable the (remap) option next to it, when a card links to a paid / encrypted dictionary entry, Pleco will attempt to find a definition for the card in a free dictionary and output that. (with (remap) turned off, cards that link to paid dictionaries will have their definitions left blank)
Once you've finished setting all of this up, tap on the Start button to begin the import; on Windows Mobile you'll be prompted to enter a filename before continuing.
At the time of this writing, the schema for the XML flashcard import/export format wasn't finalized yet; once it is, we'll post it in the knowledge base in the Support section of our website. The format for Text and PalmDoc files is described below.
A text flashcard import file consists of a list of vocabulary words, one per line, interspersed with the names of the flashcard categories those words belong to:
Each individual line is formatted like this:
characters<tab>Pinyin pronunciation<tab>definition
If you supply a definition in the import file, that will always be used as the card's definition; if you don't supply one, Pleco will attempt to find one in its built-in dictionaries. Pleco can also fill in the Pinyin pronunciation if you skip that. Make sure not to use more than one tab in each of those <tab> spaces, otherwise the importer might get confused about whether it's reading Pinyin or the definition for a word.
Pinyin syllables should be entered with tone numbers after each syllable, just as in a Pinyin dictionary search; Pinyin with tone marks is also supported, but it's a bit less reliable, and in UTF-8 and UTF-16 files it only works with actual characters (Unicode range 0000-01DC) and not with combining diacritical marks, so if possible you should always use tone numbers. (Zhuyin is not supported in import files yet, though the resulting cards will be displayed with Zhuyin pronunciations if you've configured Pleco to use them instead of Pinyin)
You can supply simplified characters, traditional characters, or both in the character portion of the line - if you're supplying both, put the simplified characters first and the traditional characters immediately after them enclosed by square brackets (as with "wo3men" in the above example; simplified[traditional]).
A "//" at the start of a line indicates that this is the beginning of a new flashcard category. Pleco will file all flashcards coming after that line under the specified category, until it reaches another "//" line in which case it will start adding flashcards to that line's category instead (and stop adding them to the previous category).
So in the above example, Pleco would create cards for ni3hao and zai4jian4 under the "My Flashcards" category, using the custom definition "Hello!" for ni3hao3 and searching its dictionaries for a definition for zai4jian4. wo3men3, zao3shang hao3, and the last item (wan3shang hao3) would all be created under the "My Other Flashcards" category instead - zao3shang hao3 would be created with the custom definition "Good Morning!", wo3men3 would have its definition filled in from a dictionary entry, and zao3shang hao3 would have both its definition and its Pinyin filled in from a dictionary entry.
For English-to-Chinese flashcards, use the format:
word<tab>definition
As with C-E flashcards, if you don't supply a definition Pleco will attempt to fill it in from a dictionary entry.
After you've created your file, see the Installing Add-Ons section of the Pleco installation manual (Windows Mobile here, Palm OS here) for information on how to copy it from your computer to your handheld.
Effective as of the 2.0.2 update, Pleco 2.0 now includes two different screens for organizing flashcards, "Manage Flashcards" and "Organize Flashcards." Both perform similar functions - they both allow you to create, delete, and edit cards, and move cards to and from different categories - but they're designed very differently.
"Organize Flashcards" is designed primarily for moving cards between categories (or assigning "Uncategorized" cards to new categories) - if you have cards in one place and you want to move them to another place, "Organize" is your best bet.
"Manage," on the other hand, is designed more for power users - it lets you find cards in many more ways (not just by what category they're in but by all sorts of other values as well), lets you customize their sort order, shows you more of each card (full screen width instead of just 1/3 or so of it), and includes a powerful "Batch Commands" screen to let you easily change large numbers of flashcards with a single command. So it's more useful for cases where you want to look for a couple of specific cards and do something to them.
If you're new to Pleco, you should probably stick to "Organize" for the most part - the interface is a lot simpler and a lot more intuitive. If you really want to take control of your flashcards, though, "Manage" is a much more powerful tool for that.
Open the flashcard system and tap on the Manage Flashcards button to bring up this screen:
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This the main system for organizing, deleting, and editing flashcards in Pleco.
This screen is divided into three main parts.
The top row lets you select which cards you want to search for. Tap on the popup list at the top left corner of the screen to select the field (type of data) you want to search for:
button to bring up the character Input screen for entering the search text. Wildcards are allowed and work the same way as in a dictionary search.With some search types, another popup list will appear right next to this which lets you select how Pleco will compare each card's data with the value you're searching for:
Next to that will be a text field or popup list where you can select the category / enter the word or number / select the date you want to search for.
Once you've set up your search, tap on the Search (
on Palm OS) button at the top right corner of the screen to execute the search and display the results in the Card List. This button will change color / add an asterisk (and start blinking, on Windows Mobile) whenever the search parameters change.
The Card List displays the results of the current search. You can change how it's sorted and which parts of the card are shown in it through the Search Settings screen. You can select a card in this list by tapping on it.
Below the Card List is a row of buttons allowing you to perform operations on the currently selected card.
The Add Category 
and Remove Category 
buttons allow you to add a card to / remove it from a particular category. Choose the category to add it to / remove it from from the Category List just to the right of those buttons. Choose "All" in that list (it's the bottommost item) and tap the Remove Category button to remove the card from all categories (i.e., put it in "Uncategorized").
The New Flashcard button creates a new, blank custom flashcard, and brings up the Edit Card screen to let you fill in the card's text.
The Card Info 
button brings up the Card Info screen with information about the selected card, including its definition, score, history, and the categories it's assigned to. You can also access the Edit Card function through that screen.
button permanently deletes the selected card. You'll be prompted to confirm this each time; to turn off that confirmation, go the Flashcards panel in Preferences.
At the bottom of the screen are two more buttons, Settings and Batch.
Tap on Settings to bring up the Search Settings screen (also accessible by choosing Advanced from the popup list at the top left corner of the screen) - this will let you set up a more elaborate flashcard search (more types, combining types, etc) and will also let you select the sort order / displayed data in the Card List.
Tap on Batch to bring up the Batch Commands screen - you can use that screen to perform operations on all of the search results at once, like adding / removing them all to/from a category, remapping them to a different dictionary, or resetting their scores / statistics.
The bottom of the screen also displays a count of the number of cards in the current search results.
Tap on the Settings button at the bottom left corner of the Manage Flashcards screen (or select Advanced from the popup list at the top left corner of that screen) to bring up the Search Settings screen:
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This allows you to set up a more complicated flashcard search and configure the way in which search results are displayed.
The top portion of this screen lets you combine up to three different types of flashcard search in a single operation. Each search takes up two lines. These work just like the search in the top row of Manage Flashcards, but with some additional fields you can search for:
Select the comparison type and the value to search for just as in Manage Flashcards. At the right side of the second row is a popup list labeled "--" - choose "AND" or "OR" from that menu to add a second value to search for. Selecting "AND" will list every card that matches both searches, while selecting "OR" will list every card that matches either search. You can add a third search this way as well; if you choose "AND" for one and "OR" for the other, the searches joined together by the "AND" will be grouped together first, so the card would have to match both of the ANDed searches or match the ORed search (algebraically it would be (x AND y) OR z rather than x AND (y OR z)).
Below the search boxes is a Sort by option; this lets you select how the results of the search will be sorted in the Card List. Selecting anything other than "none" here will make searches considerably slower; the score-related options create a particularly big slowdown. Choose the field to sort by from the popup list right next to "Sort by" (the fields are the same as for searches), then use the other popup list to select whether you want it to be in ascending or descending order.
Display lets you select which parts of each flashcard will be displayed in the Card List. Again, this uses mostly the same fields as the search boxes - "full card" shows you the full text of the flashcard, i.e., the headword, pronunciation, and definition. Select "none" from the second box to have the text from the first one take up the entire width of the Card List; otherwise, each field gets half of the width.
Tap on the Batch button at the bottom of the Manage Flashcards screen to bring up the Batch Commands screen:
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This screen lets you make a number of different changes to all of the cards in the search results (or all of your flashcards) at the same time.
The Apply changes to popup list at the top of the screen lets you select whether you want to change just the cards in the search results ("search results") or every flashcard in your collection ("all cards").
Tap on the Add or Remove cat button to add / remove cards from the specified category.
Tap on Remap to dict to attempt to remap cards to the specified dictionary; in other words, to look for a definition in that dictionary that matches the card's headword and link the card to that dictionary definition instead of the one it's currently using. If a matching entry can't be found, the card will continue to link to the dictionary it linked to before. When more than one matching entry is found for a card, a window will appear prompting you to select the correct match. Select Rebuild to keep cards in the same dictionary but reset their headword / pronunciation based on the dictionary entry they link to (doing nothing to cards that aren't linked to dictionary entries) - there's generally no reason why you'd need to do this, but occasionally we may recommend it after we release an updated version of a dictionary database (in which case it'll be mentioned in the update announcement).
Remove all cats removes cards from all categories, i.e. it makes all of them "Uncategorized."
Custom -> User converts all of the cards with custom definitions (i.e., those that don't link to a dictionary entry but store their definitions right in the card) into user dictionary entries.
The remaining options on this screen apply to scores / statistics in the currently active scorefile, i.e. whichever one is linked to from the active profile.
Tap on Score to alter the cards' scores; choose "reset" from the popup list next to it to set all of their scores to the specified value (the default score for new cards is 100), "increase" to increase it by the specified amount or "decrease" to decrease it by that amount. With "increase" and "decrease," choose "pts" or "%" from the popup list on the right side of the screen to select whether you want to change it by a fixed number of points (add/subtract that value from the score) or by a percentage of its current number of points (multiply the current score of each card by that percentage and then add / subtract that value).
Reset difficulty resets the cards' difficulty factor (used in Automatic scoring mode) to the default value of 100.
Reset all stats resets all of the cards' scoring statistics, including score, difficulty factor, reviewed dates, correct count, and history to their default values.
Delete all (not scorefile-specific) permanently deletes the cards.
Export brings up the Export screen to export the cards to a text or XML file.
Select a card in Manage Flashcards and tap on the Card Info button to bring up the Card Info screen on that card. You can also bring it up by tapping on the Card Info button during a flashcard session.
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The top of the screen displays the text of the card; during a session, this will only display the parts of the card that are currently visible.
The Scorefile popup list selects which scorefile the statistics on the screen are taken from.
Created lists the date/time when the card was created, and Reviewed the date / time when you were most recently tested on it.
Score lists the card's current score, a rating of how well you've learned it.
Record lists the number of times you've remembered the card correctly and incorrectly.
Last 10 lists the percentage of the last 10 times you were tested on the card that you remembered it correctly. (fewer if it's been reviewed less than 10 times)
Difficulty lists the card's current difficulty factor (used in Automatic scoring mode).
Categories lists all of the categories that the card belongs to - tap on the Edit Cats button (on Windows Mobile) or the Edit button right below the "Categories" label (on Palm OS) to view a screen where you can easily add / remove the card from a bunch of categories at a time by checking the box next to each category you want it to belong to.
Reset Stats resets the card's score, difficulty, and other statistics to their default values. This button is only available when Card Info is accessed from the Manage Flashcards screen, you can't use it during a flashcard session.
Edit Card brings up the Edit Card screen, where you can edit the actual text of the card or change which dictionary entry it links to. Like Reset Stats, this button is not available during a flashcard session.
Tap on the Edit Card button in the Card Info screen to bring up the Edit Card screen, allowing you to edit the text / linked dictionary entry for a card. This screen will also come up when you tap on the New Flashcard button in Manage Flashcards to allow you to edit the newly-created card.
The Edit Card screen changes depending on whether the card you're editing is linked to a dictionary entry or has its own custom definition. If it's linked to a dictionary entry you'll get this screen:
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This will be populated with the dictionary entry that the card currently links to. To select a different dictionary entry, enter the word you want to search for in the field at the top of the screen; tap on the Input button to bring up the Input screen for entering Chinese characters with handwriting / radical input, or the Clear button to clear the current input. As in the main dictionary screen, the search results will update automatically as you enter characters. Tap on the Switch Dictionary (
) icon to look for results in a different dictionary, or the Prev Entry 
and Next Entry 
buttons to scroll through the search results. Once you've selected the dictionary entry you want, tap the Done button to save your changes and exit, or Cancel to leave the card unchanged.
Select "Custom" from the Card text option at the top of the screen to give the card a custom definition (instead of linking it to a dictionary entry). When editing a card with a custom definition, the Edit Card screen looks like this:
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This works similarly to the screen for editing user dictionary entries:
Tap on the Switch Language icon at the bottom of the screen to switch the card language between Chinese-to-English 
and English-to-Chinese 
.
Enter the text of the card in the appropriate fields; Simp for the simplified-character version of the headword, Trad for the traditional-character version (you don't need to enter both), Pron for the Pinyin pronunciation (currently only tested with Pinyin), and Defn for the definition. Enter the headword for an English-to-Chinese card in the Word field.
You can enter text using your handheld's built-in text input system or using Pleco's; to enter text using Pleco's built-in handwriting / radical / keyboard inputs, tap on the field you want to edit (so that a blinking cursor appears in it), then tap on the Input button to bring up the Input Screen.
Tap the To User button at the bottom of the screen to convert the card to a user dictionary entry; the headword / pronunciation / definition will be turned into a new user dictionary entry, and the card will then be linked to that new dictionary entry instead of having its own custom definition.
Select "From Dict" from the Card text option at the top of the screen to make the card link to a dictionary entry (instead of having its own custom definition).
Open the flashcard system and tap on the Organize Flashcards button to bring up this screen:
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Choose the two categories you want to organize from the popup lists at the top of the screen. Only cards in the exact category selected will be shown; cards in child categories of that category will be ignored.
To Copy or Move a card from the left category to the right category, highlight that card in the list on the left side of the screen, and tap on the right-arrow 
button under Copy or Move. Likewise, to Copy or Move a card from the right category to the left category, highlight that card in the list on the right side of the screen and tap on the left-arrow 
Copy or Move button. Moving a card removes it from the old category and adds it to the new category, while Copying a card leaves it in both categories.
Please note that when you Copy a card from one category to another, you're not actually creating a duplicate copy of that card; instead, you're simply putting a link to that card in the new category. This way, the card's score, study history, correct/incorrect percentage, etc are shared between all of the instances of it; if you've already learned a word well in one category, the software will know not to test you on it as intensively in another category.
The up / down buttons under Move allow you to change the sort order of cards in the list on the left side of the screen. However, this is currently only useful for organizational purposes - you can't actually change which order cards appear in a session yet (though that feature is planned for a future release) - so we'd recommend against putting a whole lot of time into reordering your cards.
The Copy buttons are disabled when "Uncategorized" is selected as one of the categories to organize; this is because "Uncategorized" isn't actually a category, but is simply a list of all of the cards which aren't assigned to any specific category yet. Hence, as soon as a card is added to a category, it's no longer "Uncategorized," so copying a card from Uncategorized to another category would by definition remove it from Uncategorized. Moving a card into "Uncategorized" removes it from all categories, not just the one on the opposite side of the screen.
The Copy All button copies all of the cards from the right category to the left category. You can use this option to combine two categories by copying all of the cards from one category into another category, then deleting the first category in Manage Categories. This button is not disabled when "Uncategorized" is selected on the right side of the screen, but it functions effectively as a "Move" button in that case: copying all of the cards into the other category will also remove them from Uncategorized.
The buttons below the list on the left side of the screen function similarly to their Manage Flashcards counterparts:
The New Flashcard button creates a new, blank custom flashcard, adds it to the left category, and brings up the Edit Card screen to let you fill in the card's text.
The Card Info button brings up the Card Info screen with information about the card selected in the left list, including its definition, score, history, and the categories it's assigned to. You can also access the Edit Card function through that screen.
Finally, the Delete Card button permanently deletes the selected card. This affects the card in all categories, and deletes all data associated with the card as well; deleting the card completely removes its data from your flashcard database, so you'll no longer see it under any category or under Uncategorized. You'll be prompted to confirm this each time; to turn off that confirmation, go the Flashcards panel in Preferences.
The Remove Category button removes the selected card from the left category without adding it to the right category; it does not delete the card's data, however. If the card doesn't belong to any other categories, it'll be returned to "Uncategorized."
Open the flashcard system and tap on the Manage Categories button to bring up this screen:
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This is the main interface for creating and rearranging flashcard categories. Categories are what Pleco uses to organize cards - you can create categories for textbook chapters, interesting details (whether or not a word is slang / region-specific / etc), study strategies (whether or not this word is going to be on the final exam), or any other grouping you can think of. Each card can belong to an unlimited number of categories.
A powerful feature of Pleco's category system is that categories can be organized hierarchically; in other words, you can group categories underneath other categories, like putting folders inside of other folders on a computer. This is useful for grouping a bunch of related categories together - for example, creating one category for each chapter in a textbook, and then grouping them all under another category for the entire textbook. Grouping categories makes it easier for you to quickly scroll through a large category list (since you don't have to look through hundreds of categories to find the one you want), and also makes it easier to select categories at the start of a flashcard session (since you only need to select one category to select all of the categories grouped under it).
The Category List on the right side of the screen lists all of your current flashcard categories. Categories with other categories grouped underneath them will have a plus sign next to their names on Windows Mobile or a triangle next to their names on Palm OS; tap on that plus sign / triangle to expand the category and view the other categories grouped under it. Tap on a category name in the list to select it.
Tap on the New button to create a new category. The new category will be inserted immediately below the category that's currently selected in the Category List; on Windows Mobile you'll be able to edit its name right in the list, on Palm OS a separate box will pop up asking you to enter a name for the new category.
Tap on the Delete button to delete the currently selected category. This will also delete any other categories grouped under it; however, it will not delete any of the flashcards that are assigned to those categories.
To Move a category to a different position in the category list, select it, tap on the Move button, then tap on another category; the category you're moving will be inserted right below it. You can also move a category up or down one line at a time by selecting it and tapping on the Move Up and Move Down buttons (located just below the Category List).
To Group a category underneath another category, select it, tap on the Group button, then tap on the category you want to group it under.
To Rename a category on Windows Mobile, tap on the category name to select it, then tap on it again and the name will become editable; you can then proceed to type in the new name. On Palm OS, select the category and tap on the Rename button to rename it.
To Duplicate a category (in other words, create another category which contains the same cards) on Windows Mobile, select the category and then tap on the Duplicate button. The duplicated category will appear right below the original category in the Category List. On Palm OS, tap on the New button to create a new category, then select the category you want to duplicate from the "Duplicate From" popup list at the bottom of the screen.
To Split a category into multiple smaller categories (useful for breaking up a very large vocabulary list into manageable pieces), select it and tap on the Split button; you'll be shown the current number of cards in the category and given the option to select the number of cards you want in each of the new categories. Cards will be distributed among these new categories in a cycle, like dealing a deck of cards: first card goes in the first category, second card goes in the second category, and so on. The new categories will be grouped underneath the old category. The old category will no longer have any cards assigned directly to it, they'll all be assigned to the new categories instead.
Selecting a category which already has other categories grouped underneath it will change the Split into a Merge button. Tap on that Merge button to delete all of those child categories and add the cards in them to the parent category.
The Default option at the bottom of the screen lets you select a category category which newly-created flashcards will automatically be assigned to, useful if you're about to add a bunch of cards to the same category (say a "new words" category which you can later move them out of once you've reviewed / practiced them a bit).
On Windows Mobile, you simply select which category you want cards to be assigned to from the popup menu below "Default." Choose "Uncategorized" here if you don't want cards to be automatically assigned to any category.
On Palm OS, highlight the category you want to make the default, then tap on the "Default" button to make it into the new default category. To un-set the default categoy (so that cards will no longer be automatically assigned to any category), highlight the current default category and tap on the Default button.
This setting does not affect cards brought in through an import; imported cards which don't have any categories associated with them will always be Uncategorized.
To begin a new flashcard study session, open the flashcard system and tap on the New Flashcard Session button to bring up this screen:
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There are three main screens for setting up a new flashcard session; Test Setup lets you choose how you'd like to study, while Categories and Card Filter let you select which cards you'd like to study. The settings on all of these screens are saved to your currently active flashcard profile, so if you're using multiple profiles they'll be remembered the next time you return to that profile (but won't apply to any other profile). Tap on the Categories and Card Filter tabs to jump to those settings screens.
Number of cards selects how many cards you'd like to study in this session. Select "Endless" to display cards in a never ending loop until you manually end the session; select "All" to display every available flashcard (i.e., every flashcard that matches your Categories / Card Filter settings) exactly once.
Check Review incorrect cards at end to be retested again on all of the cards that you answered incorrectly at the end of each test session. Answers given in that second test will not affect the cards' scores. Check the (loop) option to have Pleco keep repeating incorrect cards until you've answered each one correctly at least once; each card will stop being repeated as soon as you've answered it correctly, so you'll see fewer and fewer cards on each loop until there are none left and the session exits.
If you're using "Repetition-spaced" card selection (configure this in the General tab of Advanced Settings), "Number of cards" will be hidden - you'll be shown however many cards are due to be studied. If you're using "Frequency adjust" card selection, selecting "All" from Number of cards will temporarily disable the frequency-adjustment system - each card will be shown exactly once, instead of cards being shown at different frequencies depending on their scores.
Test Type selects the way in which you'd like to be tested on your flashcards:
See Session Type Interfaces below for more info on each session type.
Show selects which parts of a flashcard will be initially visible. In "Review Only," this is the only part of the flashcard that will be shown; in "Self-scored," this is the part that's shown before you tap on the reveal button, and in other modes this is the part of the flashcard that's shown before you give your answer. "Audio" (only available if you've purchased/installed Pleco's built-in audio feature) will play a recording of a native speaker reading the flashcard word.
Ask For selects which parts of a flashcard you'll be asked to input (in Free-answer mode) or select from a list (in Multiple-choice mode). The choices here will change depending on what you select in "Show."
Once you've finished configuring your flashcard session (in this screen AND in the Categories / Card Filter screens, if needed), tap on the Start Session button at the bottom of the screen to bring up the flashcard session interface and start studying.
If you get a "no cards found" error message, it means you've configured the categories / card filter in such a way that no flashcards are actually set to be included in the test; select more categories, disable some filters (if you've enabled any) and try again. Also, make sure that you've actually created some flashcards, and that you've assigned them to some categories (you can check how many cards are assigned to each category in the Statistics screen) or that you've included the "Uncategorized" category in your session. If all else fails, go into the Manage Profiles screen, select your currently active flashcard profile and tap on the "Reset Defaults" button - this will reset everything to the default test settings, which should include all of your flashcards.
If you set "Subject Selection" to "Alternating" in the General tab of Advanced Settings, the Test Setup panel will look like this:
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In this mode, instead of choosing which parts of a flashcard will be visible / tested on for all cards, you can select up to three different areas to be tested on; Pleco will alternate between these during the session (only showing one for each card).
Check the appropriate boxes next to Test on to select which areas you want to be tested on. Customize brings you to a screen where you can select exactly which parts of a flashcard will be shown / asked for in each of these areas:
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If you set "Subject Selection" to "Score-based" in the General tab of Advanced Settings, the Test Setup panel will look like this:
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This mode lets you configure different parts of a flashcard to display depending on the card's score, useful if you want to make a test more difficult as you learn the card better (e.g. showing the headword and pronunciation for easy cards but only showing the headword for harder ones) or if you want to make sure that you study each part of a card at least a few times on your way to learning it. Click on the Configure Score Ranges button to select which parts of each card will be displayed for a given score range:
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The number fields on the left side of the screen let you specify the minimum score for each Show / Ask; cards with scores between that and the next score down on the list will have those parts shown / asked for. "Initial" is for cards with scores between 0 and the next number down on the list.
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The Categories screen lets you select which flashcard categories to draw from when selecting cards to test.
Check the box next to each category you want to be tested on; cards from each checked category will be included in the session. It's perfectly OK if some cards belong to more than one of the categories you've selected; they won't be tested any more often because of that.
Tap on the All On button to select every flashcard category, or All Off to deselect all categories. (if you start a flashcard session with no categories selected, it'll include cards from any category)
If you select a category with other categories grouped under it, those categories will be selected too, so you don't have to manually go in and check the boxes next to all of them.
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The Card Filter screen lets you use criteria other than categories to determine which cards are used in a session. The flashcard system uses both it and the settings on the Categories screen to determine which cards to test you on; cards will have to belong to one of the categories selected in the Categories screen and meet any criteria selected in the Card Filter screen in order to be included in the session.
If you're new to using Pleco's flashcard system, you can safely ignore the Card Filter screen for now; most of its options are only useful to people with a lot of flashcards anyway, and if you leave everything un-checked the system will just pick cards based on what you've selected in the Categories screen.
Check the box next to Time filter to require that cards be created / reviewed within a specific time range. Select "created" from the first popup list to filter by the time they were created, "modified" to filter by the time they were modified (text was changed or they were added to / removed from a category), "first reviewed" to filter by the time they were first used in a flashcard test, and "last reviewed" to filter by the time they were most recently tested.
Choose "before" or "after" from the second popup list to require that cards have been created/reviewed before or after a set time; tap on the time boxes to select that time. Choose "within" or "not within" to require that cards be created/reviewed within (or not within) some range from the current time. This is helpful if you don't want to have to keep going back and reconfiguring the Card Filter screen each time you begin a new session; for example, if you want to test yourself on cards created within the past week, just set the card filter to "created" "within" 1 "weeks" and you'll never need to configure it again. The "within" options let you choose between absolute time units ("days," "weeks," "months") and calendar time units ("cal days," "cal weeks," "cal months") - the absolute units use exactly the specified amount of time, i.e. 1 day = 24 hours, 1 week = 168 hours, etc, while the calendar units count from the start of the day / week / month; if it's February 14th and you set the filter to "within" 1 "cal months," it'll look for cards created/reviewed/etc since midnight on February 1st, while "within" 2 "cal months" would look for cards created/reviewed since midnight on January 1st.
Enable Score filter to require that cards' scores fall within the specified range; enter the minimum score in the first space and the maximum score in the second space. Set the minimum score to 0 if you only want to restrict the maximum score, or set the maximum score to 0 if you only want to restrict the minimum score.
Enable Times reviewed to require that cards have been tested more than / less than / exactly the specified number of times; select ">" from the popup list for "more than," "<" for "less than" or "=" for "exactly."
Enable Last answer to require that cards have been answered correctly/incorrectly the last time they were tested.
The Category Filters options allow you to impose an extra set of category restrictions along with the ones in the Categories screen; you can require that cards belong / not belong to some specific category in addition to belonging to at least one of the categories selected in the Categories screen. This is mainly useful if you've assigned cards to more than one category; for example, if you have a category for "slang" and want to test on cards that are both "slang" and come from a particular range of textbook chapters.
Check the box next to each filter to enable it; select "Require" from the first popup list to require that cards *do* belong to the specified category, or "Exclude" to require that they *don't* belong to the specified category. Select the category to filter on in the second popup list.
After opening the New Flashcard Session screen and configuring your flashcard test, tap on the Start Session button to bring up this screen:
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This is where you actually study your flashcards. The screen changes a bit for each test type, but the basic layout is common to all flashcard tests:
Top Fields - these display information about the flashcard session. The value at the top left corner of the screen shows your progress in the session; the current card number is to the left of the /, while the total number of cards to be tested is to the right. In Endless sessions, the second number is omitted, since there's no fixed limit to the number of cards you can test. The other two values can be customized in the Display panel of Advanced Settings.
Card Text - the text of the current flashcard, with the parts of the card that you're being asked to remember hidden. (not visible in Stroke Order tests) Commands configured in the Stylus Actions panel of Preferences will be available here just as in the main dictionary, except for Copy to Input (not possible without an Input Field); the Character Info and Popup Definition options will only be available once a card has been answered/revealed, in order to keep you from accidentally seeing the correct answer.
Command Buttons - you can customize which buttons appear here in the Display panel of Advanced Settings:
button is common to all flashcard sessions; tap on it to exit the current session. You'll be asked whether or not you want to save the session to return to later before you exit. Even if you exit without saving, scores will still be recorded for the cards you've already tested yourself on.
button appears in any session that includes audio (either as one of its Show fields or due to the "Enable audio in all cards" option in Modes); tap on it to play an audio recording of the current word.See the Display panel instructions for explanations of the other Command Buttons.
Answer Buttons - these control the basic operation of each flashcard session. See the description of each session type below for details on what these buttons do.
Many of the Command and Answer Buttons functions can be mapped to your handheld's hardware buttons; set this up in the Flashcards panel of Preferences. You can also assign buttons to scroll the Card Text up and down.
Review Only
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A Review Only session lets you quickly look through your flashcards without doing any testing at all. After you finish viewing each card, simply tap on the Next button to advance to the next one.
Self-scored
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In a Self-scored test, the text of each card is shown with some parts missing; the missing parts are revealed after you tap on the Reveal 
button. This allows you to look at a card, try to remember the missing parts, then check to see if you remembered them correctly, much like flipping over a printed flashcard.
If you've enabled the "Self-scored sketch box" option in the Modes panel of Advanced Settings, you'll be given a box (as shown above) in which you can draw your answer before revealing the card - this is a good way to double-check that you remembered the correct answer perfectly.
After revealing a card, tap on the Correct 
or Incorrect
button to indicate whether you remembered it correctly or incorrectly - Pleco will record this and factor it in to the card's score. Tapping Correct or Incorrect will immediately advance you to the next card, unless you've enabled "Prompt for answer quality" as described below.
If you've set your Scoring Type to "None," the Correct/Incorrect buttons will be replaced by a simple Next button - tap on that button to move on to the next card.
If you've enabled the "Self-scored separate reveal" option is enabled in the Modes panel of Advanced Settings, along with the one Reveal button you'll also see separate Reveal Headword 
, Reveal Pronunciation 
and/or Reveal Definition 
buttons; tap on one of these to reveal just that part of the card, while the other hidden parts remain hidden.
If you've enabled Automatic scoring and the "Prompt for answer quality" option in the Scoring panel of Advanced Settings, after you tap the Correct/Incorrect button you'll be shown a choice of scores - 1/2/3 (
) for an incorrect answer, or 4/5/6 (
) for a correct one. A higher score means you remembered the card better; tap on the score to record it and advance to the next card.
Multiple-choice
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In a Multiple-choice test, the text of each card is shown with some parts missing and you're prompted to select the missing parts from a list of choices. Tap on the matching headword / pronunciation / definition in the Choice Box to select it. Since definitions are too large to easily fit in the Choice Box, after selecting a definition from this list you'll be shown a longer version of it and given the option to confirm or cancel your selection.
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After making your selection, the results will be shown in the Choices Box. Correct answers will be colored green and given check marks, while incorrect answers will be colored red and given Xes. If you chose the correct answer, you'll see just that correct answer; if you chose an incorrect answer, you'll see your incorrect answer right below the correct one. After reviewing the results, tap on the Next button to move on to the next card.
If you've enabled Automatic scoring and the "Prompt for answer quality" option in the Scoring panel of Advanced Settings, instead of a Next button you'll be shown a choice of scores - 1/2/3 () for an incorrect answer, or 4/5/6 () for a correct one. A higher score means you remembered the card better; tap on the score to record it and advance to the next card.
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In a Free-answer test, the text of each card is shown with the headword or Pinyin pronunciation missing and you're prompted to enter the text of the missing part. Currently, only words with 4 or fewer characters/syllables are supported. An Answer Box will appear for each character/syllable in the word; the Answer Box that's currently accepting input will be shown with a double-thick border. Tap on another Answer Box to select it.
On a Free-answer test where you're supplying the headword (as shown above), you'll be given a handwriting recognizer interface just like the one in the main dictionary Input Palette. Draw a character in the Drawing Box, tap on the Recognize 
button to recognize it, then tap on the correct character in the Character Box to enter it into the first Answer Box.
On a Free-answer test where you're supplying the pronunciation, simply type in the Pinyin using the onscreen keyboard or your handheld's built-in keyboard. Use numbers to indicate tones, as in Pinyin dictionary searches.
After you enter each character/syllable, the system will automatically switch to the next Answer Box, so you don't have to manually switch between them.
If you've enabled "Free-answer score immediately" in the Modes panel of Advanced Settings, your answer will be checked as soon as you finish entering it; otherwise, tap on the Answer 
button to check it:
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Incorrect answers will have their Answer Boxes drawn with a red background and a double-thick border; correct answers will have their Answer Boxes drawn with a green background and a normal-width border. After reviewing the results, tap on the Next button to move on to the next card.
If you've enabled Automatic scoring and the "Prompt for answer quality" option in the Scoring panel of Advanced Settings, instead of a Next button you'll be shown a choice of scores - 1/2/3 () for an incorrect answer, or 4/5/6 () for a correct one. A higher score means you remembered the card better; tap on the score to record it and advance to the next card.
Stroke Order
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In a Stroke Order test, you're shown the outline of a Chinese character and prompted to tap on the character's strokes in the correct order. Note that this will only test single-character flashcards; it ignores multi-character cards altogether.
Tap on the strokes in the box on the left side of the screen in the correct order. To help you make sure you select the correct stroke, when you hold down your handheld's stylus the stroke you're about to select will be highlighted in blue; drag the stylus around until the correct stroke is selected, then release it to record the stroke. If you make a mistake, tap on the Undo button to remove the last stroke entered, or the Clear button to start over from the first stroke.
Once you've finished entering the stroke order, tap on the Answer button to check it.
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Strokes that you entered at the correct point in the order will be shown in green, while strokes that you entered incorrectly will be shown in red. Tap on the Replay: Correct button to draw the card's strokes one-by-one in the correct order, or the Entered button to draw them in the order in which you entered them. After reviewing the results, tap on the Next button to move on to the next card.
If you've enabled Automatic scoring and the "Prompt for answer quality" option in the Scoring panel of Advanced Settings, instead of a Next button you'll be shown a choice of scores - 1/2/3 () for an incorrect answer, or 4/5/6 () for a correct one. A higher score means you remembered the card better; tap on the score to record it and advance to the next card.
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In a Tone Practice test, you're shown the full text of a flashcard but with the tones missing from the Pinyin pronunciation, and prompted to enter the correct tones.
The interface for this is exactly the same as for a Free-answer pronunciation test, except that instead of a keyboard you're given just five buttons (one for each tone); tap on the appropriate tone to enter that in the current Answer Box, or to change the tone that's already in that box.
When you exit a flashcard session before it's finished, you'll be shown a prompt asking if you want to save the session to resume later; tap Yes to save the session, No to discard it, or Cancel to not exit the session at all.
Saved sessions are preserved even if you exit Pleco or soft reset your handheld; the data for them is stored in a file called "Pleco Saved Flash Session," in \\Program Files\Pleco on Windows Mobile or in regular internal memory on Palm OS. However, due to technical limitations you cannot access any other part of Pleco's flashcard system while a saved session is present; you can create new flashcards with the Add to Flashcards button, but that's all.
To resume a saved session, simply launch the flashcard system and you'll immediately be prompted to resume the session. Choose "Resume" or "Yes" to resume the session, or choose "No" or "Delete" to discard it and regain access to the rest of the flashcard system.
To make additional changes to your flashcard test configuration, open the flashcard system and tap on the Advanced button to bring up this screen:
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There are five additional screens' worth of options under Advanced Settings. Cards lets you configure how exactly Pleco chooses which cards to test you on; Display lets you configure the font sizes, character set, and definition display during the session; Controls lets you configure which buttons are available at the bottom of the screen during tests; Tests lets you tweak some settings specific to certain test types, like where choices come from in "Multiple-choice" tests and how answers in "Free-answer" tests are scored; and Scoring lets you select how cards' scores are calculated and what scorefile they're read from / stored in. Tap on the Display / Controls / Tests / Scoring tabs to jump to those screens. If you're new to using Pleco flashcards, the Display and Tests screens are probably the ones you're most likely to find useful.
As in New Flashcard Session, the settings on all of these screens are saved to your currently active flashcard profile, so if you're using multiple profiles they'll be remembered the next time you return to that profile (but won't apply to any other profile).
Card language lets you select whether you want to learn new Chinese words or English words. Do not change this option unless you know what you're doing - if you set it to "English-Chinese," your flashcard sessions will only show cards based on English-to-Chinese dictionary entries, so if all of your cards are Chinese-to-English you'll just get a lot of "no cards found" error messages. English-to-Chinese flashcards are a somewhat experimental feature and currently only support the "Review Only" and "Self-scored" test modes.
Day type lets you determine how Pleco's flashcard system calculates the starts of days - this affects Repetition-spaced Card Selection (see below) and the "Only change score once per day" option in the Scoring panel. With "Hours," days will be calculated in 24-hour increments from the current time, so a card which isn't supposed to be shown again for 2 days won't appear again until at least 48 hours have elapsed since it was last shown. Fractions of days are factored in, so with "Points per day" set to 100, a score of 150 would correspond to 36 hours. "Calendar" calculates days from a specified start time; for example, if a card is set to show again after 1 day and the day start time is set to 2:00am, the card won't show up again until after 2:00am on the next day. However, if you review the card at 1:59am, it could show up again as early as 2:01am, so the start time should probably be set to your latest possible bedtime (or whatever point in the evening you always stop studying).
Card Selection determines how Pleco chooses which cards to show you during a flashcard session. Each Card Selection mode has an additional option displayed on the next line below.
Limit unlearned cards to (available in all Card Selection modes except "Fixed") is a very powerful option that lets you limit the pool of new / un-learned cards to a finite number; this keeps you from being overwhelmed by more new words than you can manage at a time. You simply set a threshold at which a card is considered "learned" (also reflected in the Statistics screen) and then Pleco will try to keep the number of un-"learned" cards that you're studying at any given time below a certain number. Once you've reviewed a card, even once, it'll be part of your pool of cards to study, so if you're already working on more than the specified number of "unlearned" cards before you enable this option it won't take any away, but it won't introduce any new ones until you've learned enough of them to drop the un-"learned" count below the level you set.
Choose the maximum number of unlearned cards from the popup list next to "Limit unlearned cards to."
Learned if sets the threshold at which a card is considered "learned" - "score >=" considers them learned after they reach a minimum score value, "correct total" considers them learned after they've been answered correctly a certain number of times, and "correct in row" considers them learned after they've been answered correctly a certain number of times in a row. Note that with the "score" and "correct in row" options it is possible for a card to become un-"learned" again after it's already been "learned" - this is useful if you stop / cut back on your Chinese studies for a while, since it'll help ensure that you aren't presented with a bunch of new vocabulary words until you've re-learned any words you've forgotten.
The Prioritize by option determines how Pleco chooses new cards for you to study - "random" will choose them randomly from all eligible cards, "created" will choose them by the exact order in which they were created, and "approx created" does almost the same thing but will randomly choose between created within a day of each other; this is useful if you've imported a long vocabulary list that happens to be alphabetically ordered (so that cards later in the alphabet would have been "created" a few seconds after earlier cards) and don't want to actually study cards in that exact order (so you don't have to get through all the 'a's before you can start with the 'b's, and so on)
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The Display screen lets you configure how the text of each flashcard is displayed and which control buttons are available during flashcard sessions.
Test Subject Selection determines how Pleco selects which parts of a flashcard to show you / ask you for during the session. With "Simple," you just specify the parts of cards you want to study at the beginning of the test; "Alternating" alternates between different sections for each card, and "Score-based" lets you customize the parts of a card to show / ask for based on how well you've learned that particular card. See the Test Setup instructions for more on how these modes work.
Force defns from dicts lets you draw flashcard definitions from a specific set of dictionaries, rather than from whatever dictionaries the flashcards were originally created from / linked to. See Session Dictionaries below for more on this.
Check Show statistics at end of session to display a statistical summary (number of cards correct / incorrect, elapsed time, and average score) at the end of each flashcard session.
The Top Fields popup lists select which extra information will be displayed at the top of the flashcard session screen:
Enable Force character set to specify which character set (simplified or traditional) will be used during this session; with this option disabled, the system will use whichever character set is currently selected in the main dictionary screen. "Simplified" and "Traditional" use those character sets, but include the other character set in brackets if it's configured to show up that way in the main dictionary; "Simp-only" and "Trad-only" don't show the other character set in brackets even if it's visible in the main dictionary.
The next two options concern font sizes, and differ on Palm and Windows Mobile.
On Windows Mobile, select the font size for flashcard definitions from the Defn size popup list, and the size for headwords from Head size. Set these to the same value if you don't want headwords to be magnified. This does not affect the size of the choices shown in Multiple-choice sessions or of the fill-in blanks in Free-answer sessions.
On Palm OS, check Use large font in definition to use a larger font for flashcard definitions, and check Magnify chars in headword to use an even larger font than that for flashcard headwords.
Definition parts lets you select exactly which parts of each dictionary definition are visible during sessions; this feature currently only works with entries in the ABC dictionary. "Show All" shows the entire definition; "No Xrefs" shows everything except for the "See Also" links to other dictionary entries, and "Defn Only" hides both those and example sentences, so that you see only the definition and nothing else - this is useful if you want to keep definitions short and easy to read through quickly, or if you want to make sure you aren't accidentally given any hints to the card's characters / pronunciation from the example sentences.
Enable "Force defns from dicts" in the Display tab, then click on the Choose button to go to this screen:
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This provides the option of changing which dictionary a flashcard gets its definition from during a flashcard session; in other words, you can specify a particular set of dictionaries you want to use during that session and Pleco will get all of its definitions from those dictionaries (instead of from whichever dictionaries the cards normally link to), searching for entries in them that match the headwords in the flashcards. This is useful if, for example, you want to use entries from a particularly short / concise dictionary for multiple-choice tests but a longer dictionary for self-scored ones. This will not permanently change the dictionary entries that the flashcards link to, it only applies during a particular test session.
This is an advanced feature, so unless you specifically want to use it you should leave it turned off (i.e., the "Force definitions from dicts" box unchecked) - turning it on without taking the time to configure it properly can lead to unexpected results.
To enable this feature, check the Force definitions from dicts box at the top of the screen - that will make the other options visible.
The list at the left side of the screen shows which dictionaries the session is going to use, and in what order, while the list on the right side of the screen shows unused dictionaries. Select an entry in the right list and tap Add to add it to the list of dictionaries to use, or select an entry in the left list and tap Remove to remove it from the list, Up to move it up in the list or Down to move it down; the flashcard system will search the dictionaries for matching entries in the order they appear in the left list.
If a flashcard already links to a definition from one of the available dictionaries, the system will still search all of the dictionaries above it in the list for a match; if it can't find one in any of those dictionaries, it'll keep the existing definition. If a match can't be found in any of the available dictionaries, the card won't be shown at all.
Enable Use custom card definitions to keep definitions from custom cards (i.e., cards that don't link to any dictionary entry but supply their own definition) rather than attempting to remap those cards to dictionary entries. This does not apply to cards that link to user-created dictionaries; those are treated like any other dictionary-based cards. If you enable (as a fallback), Pleco will still search the dictionaries in the list for a match, but if if can't find a match in any of them it will use the definition from the card (rather than not showing the card at all).
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The Controls screen lets you configure which buttons / commands are available during flashcard sessions, and how they can be used.
Maximum audio plays selects the number of times the audio on an audio-based flashcard can be replayed before the card is revealed (in Self-scored tests) or answered (in Free-answer / Multiple-choice / Tone Practice tests). This can be useful when learning to hear audio accurately. Choose "Unlimited" to allow unlimited audio plays.
Enable audio in all cards adds audio playback to all flashcard tests, allowing you to play audio for any card after you've revealed / answered it. Enable (auto-play) to automatically play the audio after the card is revealed/answered.
The Buttons options let you select which additional command buttons will be available during a flashcard session:
goes back to the previously-reviewed card in the session; you can go back up to 1000 cards. After you tap on the Back button, a Forward button will appear allowing you to move forward again in the card history, along with a Return 
button allowing you to jump all the way forward to the current card. brings up the Card Info screen with information on the review history / categories for the card. permanently deletes the current card from your flashcards.
skips testing the current card, and prevents it from coming up again in the current session, but doesn't delete it permanently.
manually adjusts the card's score in the specified way. Choose "inc" to increase it, "dec" to decrease it, or "set" to set it to a fixed value. With "inc" and "dec," choose "pts" or "%" from the popup list on the right side of the screen to select whether you want to change the score by a fixed number of points (add/subtract that value from the score) or by a percentage of its current number of points (multiply the current score of each card by that percentage and then add / subtract that value). adds/removes a card to/from the selected category. The icon will have a green plus sign () on it if the card isn't already in that category, in which case tapping on the button will add it to the category, or a red minus sign () if it already is in that category, in which case tapping on the button will remove it from the category.
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The Tests screen lets you configure settings that are specific to particular test types.
Multi-choice
Number of choices selects the number of choices (4 or 5) offered during Multiple-choice flashcard tests.
From determines where the alternate (incorrect) choices in Multiple-choice tests come from: "All cards" chooses them from all of your flashcards, "Session cats" from cards in the categories in use during the test session, and "Custom cats" from a customized list of card categories - tap on the "Set" button that appears after you select "Custom cats" to pop up a screen where you can choose which categories you want to use.
Self-scored
Reveal separately causes Pleco to reveal the hidden parts of each Self-scored card separately (one-at-a-time) instead of all at once; see Session Interface below for more on how this works.
Show sketchbox adds a drawing box in to Self-scored sessions; you can use this to jot down your answer before revealing the card, so that you can check to see if you remembered it correctly afterwards. (taller) makes this box taller (not recommended on handhelds with square screens).
Allow missing sections allows cards to appear during Self-scored (and Review-only) sessions even if portions of them are missing (e.g. there's no Pinyin or no definition for the card) - enable this if you've imported a long list of cards from a text file and want to be reminded to look up / fill in cards from that list that Pleco doesn't have definitions for.
Head/Pron From Dicts causes Pleco to get cards' headwords and pronunciations from their linked dictionary entries, as well as their definitions. This is useful if you want to preserve formatting / extra data that's removed by the flashcard system, like the parenthetical (r)s that follow some dictionary headwords.
Free-answer
Enable Score immediately to have answers on Free-answer tests graded correct/incorrect immediately as soon as you finish inputting them, rather than waiting for you to press the Answer button. (this saves time, but prevents you from double-checking your work)
Enable Ignore tones to mark Free-answer Pinyin inputs as correct even if their tones are missing or don't match those on the card. (not recommended for long-term use, since correct tones are essential for learning Chinese).
No keyboard disables the onscreen keyboard during free-answer Pinyin tests (to save space); you can use your handheld's built-in keyboard instead. Only recommended on handhelds with hardware keyboards.
With Require filled enabled, the system will refuse to score a free-answer answer correct or incorrect until all of the spaces have been filled (tapping on the Answer button before then will do nothing); this also applies to Stroke Order tests (where it'll require every stroke to have been selected). This is useful if you have a tendency to accidentally hit the Answer button before you've finished filling in all of the blanks.
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The Scoring screen lets you configure how Pleco calculates and stores flashcard scores, which the flashcard system uses to optimize which cards you see during flashcard test sessions (showing you cards you remember well less often than new cards / cards you don't remember as well).
The Scorefile popup lists selects the current scorefile for the active profile - in other words, it lets you choose where flashcard scores will be read from / written to during tests. Scores from this scorefile will be used to determine how often cards come up during tests, and the scores in it will be updated based on results of each test (whether you remembered each card correctly or incorrectly). As with other profile/scorefile-related options, you can safely ignore this option if you don't want to deal with multiple profiles / scorefiles.
Tap on the Manage button to go to the Manage Scorefiles screen, where you can create, delete, rename, and reorganize your scorefiles.
Scoring Type selects the way in which flashcard scores are adjusted based on your correct/incorrect answers:
Enable Only change (score) once per day to prevent a card's score from being increased/decreased more than once per day, regardless of how many times you're tested on it. This prevents the score from changing more than once in the same direction; if you remember a card correctly but then remember it incorrectly later on that same day, the score would still decrease based on that incorrect answer, and if you after that you test it a third time and remember it correctly the score would again increase; however, if you answer it correctly twice in a row, the score won't increase again the second time. This helps to ensure that intense periods of studying (say, cramming before a big exam) won't distort your scores too much, so we strongly recommend leaving it enabled. A "day" here is defined the same way as a "day" for Repetition-spaced card selection; if you're using another type of card selection, to change how the day is calculated here, go to the General tab, switch to Repetition-spaced card selection temporarily, configure the day type / start time, then switch back to your previous card selection type.
With Automatic scoring, the following additional options will be available:
Aggressiveness selects how aggressively scores for each card are increased after you answer them correctly. A higher aggressiveness setting means larger score increases. The aggressiveness setting can range from 1 to 6: 3 is the default in Pleco, 5 roughly corresponds to the aggressiveness used by SuperMemo et al.
Difficulty scaling lets you tweak the scoring algorithm to better fit some learning strategies. "None" keeps the default algorithm, "First Increase" weights the score increase after a card is first answered correctly by its difficulty factor, and "All Decreases" weights the amount the card's score is decreased after an incorrect answer by its difficulty factor (rather than simply resetting the score to its default value of 100). See the algorithm description for more details on this - the default "None" setting should work best for most people, so if you don't want to delve into the mathematics of this it's probably best to just stick with that.
If you enable Show score btns, after each correct/incorrect answer, Pleco will show an additional prompt asking you to rate how well you remembered the card, from 1-3 for an incorrect answer or 4-6 for a correct one. A higher score means you remembered it better, so you'd enter 3 for an incorrect answer which you almost remembered / only remembered a little bit incorrectly, and you'd enter 4 for a correct answer which you had a very difficult time remembering (or took a lucky guess on). This is then factored into the scoring algorithm. The menu next to this checkbox lets you select how the buttons will appear. The options with a / in them mean that a different set of buttons will show up depending on whether you answered the card correctly or incorrectly (so for example, 321 / 456 would have the buttons for scores of 3, 2, and 1 appear in that order on an incorrect answer, and the buttons for scores of 4, 5, and 6 appear in that order on a correct answer). The options without a / display all 6 choices for each answer, regardless of whether you answered correctly or incorrectly; this is particularly useful in multi-choice tests (where if you have no clue about the answer and happen to hit the correct choice you can penalize yourself as if you hadn't known the card) and free-answer tests (where you can credit yourself for a correct answer if you, say, accidentally misspelled a Pinyin syllable but know you were thinking of the correct one). "(alternating)" displays all 6 buttons in the order 654321 on a correct answer or 123456 on an incorrect answer.
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With Manual scoring, you can separately configure what happens after each correct / incorrect answer.
Enable Raise to raise the score after a correct answer, and Lower to lower it after an incorrect one. Raise and Lower each have the same set of options:
The first row of options lets you choose how the score changes; select "by" from the first popup list to increase/decrease the score by a specified amount, or "to" to set it to a fixed value. With "to," enter that value in the input field to the right of the popup list; card scores will be set to that specific value when the card is answered correctly/incorrectly. With "by," enter the amount to change the score by, then choose "pts" to add/subtract that number of points from the current score or "%" to add/subtract that percentage of the current score. (so if a card with a score of 100 was set to Raise "by" 30 "%," its score would increase to 130).
The second row of options determine when the score changes. The first popup list selects how many times the card must be answered correctly/incorrectly before each change; "1" would mean it's changed after every correct/incorrect answer. The second list determines how close together those results need to be:
Finally, the Min score setting lets you configure a minimum score for cards; a card's score won't be reduced below this even if you continue remembering it incorrectly. We recommend setting this to 100, since that's the default score for newly-created cards (and thus ensures that cards that you've remembered incorrectly won't come up more often than cards you've never even been tested on before). This is only an option with Manual scoring, since the Automatic scoring algorithm already has a minimum score built in.
Open the flashcard system and tap on the Statistics button to bring up this screen:
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This screen provides a statistical summary of the progress you've made in studying flashcards. Choose "All" from the Category list at the top of the screen to display statistics for all cards, or choose a specific category to display statistics only for cards in that category. These statistics are all drawn from the currently active profile's scorefile.
Total Cards is the total number of flashcards in the selected category (or in your entire flashcard system with "All").
Average Score is the average card score, and Average Difficulty the average difficulty factor (used in Automatic scoring).
Total Repetitions is the total number of times that these cards have been individually reviewed. Each time you're tested on a card counts as a repetition, so a 100-card session would count as 100 repetitions (regardless of whether or not any of those cards were shown more than once).
Average Repetitions Per Card are the average number of times you've been tested on each card. Per Day are the average number of repetitions you've done each day since you started using Pleco flashcards.
Average Correct % is the average percentage of the time that you've remembered a card correctly (i.e., the ratio of total correct answers to total correct + incorrect answers).
Cards Learned is the number of cards that you've remembered correctly the last three times you've been tested on them; Per Day is the average number of cards that have been added to this group each day since you started using Pleco flashcards.
Finally, Score Ranges lists the number of cards in each of a set of predefined score ranges.
Open the flashcard system and tap on the Manage button at the top right corner of the screen to bring up the Manage Profiles screen:
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Use this screen to create, delete, and rearrange your flashcard profiles. A profile is a set of flashcard test settings; you can use profiles to save / retrieve those settings so that you don't have to reconfigure them each time. Any changes you make to the settings in New Flashcard Session and Advanced Settings will be saved to the currently active profile, and will be retrieved whenever you select that profile again.
Your current flashcard profiles are listed on the right side of the screen; tap on one to select it.
Tap on New to create a new flashcard profile and select which scorefile will initially be associated with it. In the box that comes up asking you to enter a name for the new profile, select an existing scorefile from the "Scorefile" popup list to use that scorefile, or select "(create new)" to create a new scorefile with the same name as the new profile. If you're not using scorefiles, just leave this on the default option and all of your scores will stored in the same place.
After you've created a new profile, to configure it, go back into the main Pleco Flashcards screen, select the new profile from the menu at the top of the screen, then go into the New Flashcard Session and Advanced Settings screens to edit its settings.
Tap on Duplicate to create another profile with the same settings as the currently selected profile.
Tap on Rename to rename the selected flashcard profile; this will not change the name of the scorefile associated with it, go to Manage Scorefiles for that.
Tap on Delete to delete the selected flashcard profile; this will not delete the scorefile associated with it, go to Manage Scorefiles for that.
Tap on Reset (to) Defaults to restore a flashcard profile to the default test settings - this is useful if you find yourself getting a "No Cards Found" error when starting flashcard sessions and can't figure out how to get rid of it, since the default test settings should include all of your cards.
Tap on Move Up/Down to move a profile up or down in the list; this will affect the order they appear in the profile list at the top of the main flashcards screen.
Open the flashcard system, tap on the Advanced button, select the Scoring tab at the top of the screen, and tap on the Manage button at the top right corner of the screen to bring up the Manage Scorefiles screen:
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Use this screen to create, delete, and rearrange your flashcard scorefiles. A scorefile is a set of flashcard scores and other statistics; the results of flashcard tests are saved to the currently active profile's scorefile, which you can change from the Scoring tab in Advanced Settings, and scores from that profile are used to calculate which cards show up during flashcard sessions.
Note that even though this screen is accessed through Advanced Settings, it shows all of your scorefiles, not just the one associated with the currently active profile.
Tap on New to create a new scorefile; enter the name for the new scorefile in the box that pops up. You can also create a new scorefile automatically when you create a new profile in the Manage Profiles screen.
Tap on Duplicate to create a copy of an existing scorefile, containing the same scores / statistics as the original file.
Tap on Rename to rename the selected scorefile.
Tap on Delete to delete the selected scorefile.
Tap on Reset to delete all of the scores / statistics in the selected scorefile, resetting all of the card scores in it to the default value and clearing all statistics / history info / etc.
Tap on Move Up/Down to move a scorefile up or down in the list; this will affect the order they appear in the Scorefile popup list in the Scoring tab in Advanced Settings.
For math-savvy Pleco users, here's a summary of the algorithm used by the Automatic score calculation system:
Note that with this system, the difficulty factor gets higher when the card is easier - a card with a low difficulty factor is a card you've had more trouble remembering than a card with a high difficulty.
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