), located in the toolbar at the top of the screen. Let's create a flashcard for the word 
"bao1zi" "steamed bun." Look up in the dictionary using whatever method you like:Pleco 2.0 Instruction Manual : Flashcards Tutorial
This tutorial will take you through the basics of using Pleco's built-in flashcard system, which you can use to easily create / test yourself on lists of vocabulary words. We hope to post additional tutorials on our website from time to time (and possibly even a video or two), so check back there for more - you can also find lots of useful tips in our discussion forums.
The easiest way to create a flashcard is to tap on the Add to Flashcards button (), located in the toolbar at the top of the screen. Let's create a flashcard for the word "bao1zi" "steamed bun." Look up in the dictionary using whatever method you like:
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Tap on the Add to Flashcards button (highlighted in red) to create a flashcard for the word . You'll see a message flash on the screen to tell you you've successfully created the new card:
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Now tap on the Add to Flashcards button again. You'll see this message instead:
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Pleco automatically checks to see if the card you're creating is a duplicate of a card you've created before, and skips creating the new card if that's the case. (you can turn duplicate-checking off in Preferences if you like)
Look up a half dozen or so other words in the dictionary and create flashcards based on those, again using the Add to Flashcards button.
Now that you've created some flashcards, you can test yourself on them. Choose Open Flashcards from the "Modules" menu to bring up the main interface of Pleco's flashcard system. On Windows Mobile, tap on the "Modules" menu at the bottom of the screen and select "Open Flashcards"; on Palm OS, tap on the menu button at the top right corner of the screen and select "Open Flashcards" from the "Modules" menu.
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There are a lot of buttons here, but right now the one we're interested in is the big New Flashcard Session button towards the top of the screen. Tap on that to bring up this screen:
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Select "5" from the Number of cards popup list but leave Test type set to "Self-scored" and Show set to "Headword." Tap on the Start Session button to begin the flashcard test.
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Try to remember the correct Pinyin and definition for this card, then tap on the Reveal button (
) to show the entire card.
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Tap on the Correct button (
) if you remembered the card correctly, or the Incorrect button (
) if you remembered it incorrectly.
Repeat this with the next four cards, and when you're finished you'll see this summary screen:
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After looking at this, you'll be returned to the main Pleco Flashcards screen. Tap on the New Flashcard Session button again, and change the setting next to "Show" from "Headword" to "Pron + Defn." Tap Start Session again to bring up another flashcard test:
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This will let you practice remembering characters instead of remembering their pronunciation / definition. The Reveal / Correct / Incorrect buttons work just as before.
Instead of continuing on with the session, tap on the Exit button (
) to exit it. You'll see the following prompt:
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Tap "Yes" to save the session to resume later. You'll be taken back to the main dictionary screen.
To return to that saved session, choose Open Flashcards from the "Modules" menu again:
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Tap "Yes" or "Resume" to resume the session. Click through Reveal / Correct / Incorrect through the remaining cards in the session.
As your flashcard collection grows larger, you can keep it organized by using Categories. Categories are tags that can be applied to groups of cards to identify and organize them - you can create categories for textbook chapters, types of words (food, weather, transportation, etc), study-related groupings (like which words are going to be on the next class exam), linguistic classifications (slang or region-specific vocabulary), or any other system you can come up with. Each card can belong to an unlimited number of categories.
Let's create a category for "Foods" and put our flashcard in it. Go back to the main flashcard screen (Open Flashcards menu command), and tap on the Manage Categories button to bring up this screen:
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Tap on the "New" button to create a new category. On Windows Mobile, the new category will immediately appear in the list on the right side of the screen; enter the category name "Foods" on your handheld's keyboard and press the return key (on the keyboard) when you're done. On Palm OS, a separate window will come up prompting you to enter the category name; enter "Foods" and then tap the OK button to create the category.
Tap on the OK or Done button to exit the Manage Categories screen, then tap on the Organize Flashcards button to bring up this screen:
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You use this screen to organize your flashcards into categories; you can also edit and delete flashcards through this screen.
Select "Foods" from the menu at the top left corner of the screen, and "Uncategorized" from the menu at the top right corner of the screen; the list below each menu displays a list of all of the cards in that category. You'll see that your newly-added cards are all under "Uncategorized."
Tap on in the "Uncategorized" list to select it, and tap on the left-pointing arrow under "Move" to move it into the "Foods" category:
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And there you go, "baozi" is now categorized under "Foods."
(in case you're wondering, the "Copy" buttons put a card in one category without removing it from another category, but they're disabled when dealing with "Uncategorized" - once a card belongs to a category, it's no longer "Uncategorized")
Once you've organized your cards into categories, you can choose which cards to review in a particular flashcard session based on their categories.
Look up a few other Chinese food terms in the dictionary, add them to your flashcards, and put them in the Foods category as described above. Then, go into the New Flashcard Session screen again, and select the "Categories" tab to bring up this screen:
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Check the box next to the "Foods" category to include cards from that category in the session. If no categories are selected in this screen, the session will include cards from any category.
Go back to the Test Setup tab and select "Free-answer" from the popup list next to "Test type." Change the setting for "Show" from "Headword" to "Pronunciation" and make sure that "Ask For" is now set to "Headword," then tap the Start Session button to begin the session:
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In this type of flashcard test, instead of just remembering the word, you actually have to write it in correctly using Pleco's handwriting recognizer. Draw the character in the large box on the right side of the screen, then tap on the Recognize button (
) to recognize it, just like in the Input Screen. The Undo (
) and Clear (
) buttons also work just like they do in that screen.
After tapping Recognize, locate the character you want in the box on the left side of the screen, then tap on that character to enter it into the first Answer Box. If there's more than one character/syllable in this card's headword, draw / recognize / input the second character into the second Answer Box. To change the character in an Answer Box, tap on it to select it (its border will appear thicker), then enter that new character and it'll replace the one that's already there.
Once you finish entering your characters, tap on the Answer button (
) at the bottom right corner of the screen to check your answer:
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The Answer Boxes that you filled in correctly will be shaded green, while the ones that you filled in incorrectly will be shaded red. Tap on the Next button (
) to advance to the next card.
You can also perform a Free-answer test where you have to supply the Pinyin instead of the characters; for that, set "Show" to "Headword" and "Ask For" to "Pronunciation" in the New Flashcard Session screen. In that mode, instead of a handwriting recognizer you'll be given an onscreen keyboard which you can use to enter the correct Pinyin in each Answer Box.
Instead of creating flashcards one at a time, it's also possible to import an entire list of vocabulary words into Pleco and automatically create flashcards based on that list; many such lists are available on our website and elsewhere on the internet, including lists for several popular textbook series.
Go to our website and download a flashcard list that looks interesting to you, then follow the instructions in the installation manual (Windows Mobile / Palm OS) to copy that flashcard list to your handheld. Then, go back to the main flashcard screen (Open Flashcards menu command), and tap on the Import button to bring up the flashcard Import screen:
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On Windows Mobile, tap on the "Choose File" button at the top of the screen, choose "Text" from the "Type" popup list, and tap on the flashcard list file to select it. On Palm OS, select "PalmDoc File (Int)" from the "Source" popup list and select the flashcard list from the list of files; if you don't see it listed there, try choosing "Text File (Card)" from that popup list instead.
Make sure "Card Language" is set to "Chinese-English." "Text Encoding" should be set to "UTF-8" unless the website that you downloaded the file from told you to select another encoding.
The other default settings should be fine, so just tap on the "Start" button at the bottom of the screen to begin the import. A screen will show up to verify that the Chinese characters in the file were decoded correctly; check that they look correct, then tap "Yes (Continue)" to proceed with the import.
The import may take a while - you can follow its progress with the card counter (located at the top of the screen on Palm and the bottom of the screen on Windows Mobile). Once it finishes, exit the Import screen with the OK or Done button, then go back into Manage Flashcards and you should see many more cards and categories available.
Now that you have a larger pool of flashcards, you can try a couple of other types of flashcard tests.
Go back into New Flashcard Session and select "Multiple-choice" from the "Test type" popup list. Set "Show" to "Headword" and "Ask for" to "Pron + Defn." Go into the Categories tab, choose some categories to study, then go back to Test Setup and tap the Start Session button to begin the session:
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Simply tap on the correct choice in the list to select it. When selecting a dictionary definition, after tapping on your choice you'll be shown a longer version of that definition; tap "Confirm" to confirm the selection or "Cancel" to go back and choose a different definition.
After selecting the correct pronunciation and definition, you'll be shown the results of the test on this screen:
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The correct answers will be shaded in green and have little green check marks next to them. If you answered part of the question incorrectly, your incorrect answer will be shaded in red with a red X mark next to it and located just below the correct answer. As in a Free-answer test, you can tap on the Next button to proceed to the next card.
Exit this session, then go back to New Flashcard Session and select "Stroke Order" from the "Test Type" popup list. (note that this won't work correctly in the demo version of Pleco) There's no Show or Ask to select with this type of test, so just tap Start Session to begin:
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Tap on the outlined strokes 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 finish entering the strokes, tap on the Answer button () to check your answer:
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The strokes you entered at the correct point in the stroke order will be shaded in green, while those entered at the wrong point in the order will be shaded red. Tap the "Correct" button to animate the character's strokes in the correct order or the "Entered" button to animate them in the order in which you entered them. Tap the Next button to continue on to the next card.
That concludes this tour of Pleco 2.0's flashcard system. See the Reference Manual for more detailed information - some interesting features not covered in this tutorial are Tone Practice tests, which are like Free-answer tests but only prompt you to enter tones; the Statistics screen, which gives you information on how many cards you've studied and how well you've learned them; Profiles and Scorefiles, allowing you to easily save / restore sets of flashcard settings and track your progress on cards differently for different test types; and many useful items in Advanced Settings, like the options to review incorrect cards at the end of a session, to play audio for every flashcard and to add additional control buttons to the flashcard session user interface.
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