Anki Dictionary.app Helper

A small tool help to add vocabulary from Dictionary.app as Anki card more convenient.

Requirement

• Anki-Connect
• Keep Anki running

To copy from Dictionary.app with styles, first open TextEdit.app, click Services > Services Preferences, check New TextEdit With Selected Contents, assign a shortcut like Command + Alt + t.

Usage

Now, you can open Dictionary.app, query some words, select the definition or just press Command + a to select all, then press Command + Alt + t will open the TextEdit.app with the selected contents and reserved styles. Press Command + s to save the contents as html file and use the query word as filename.

Run this tool: cargo run -- html_file will open Anki add card GUI filled with contents.

There is also a watch mode: cargo run -- dir will watch dir, once a new file added to dir, add card trigger automatically. Under watch mode, processed html file will move to an imported/ sub directory.

The last step is to add card styling in Anki, you can tweak yourself from html file, or just use mine:

.card {
    font-family: arial;
    font-size: 20px;
    text-align: center;
    color: black;
    background-color: white;
}
p.p1 {margin: 0 0 0 0; font: 16.1px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #000000; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); -webkit-text-stroke: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5)}
p.p2 {margin: 0 0 0 0; font: 16.1px 'Helvetica Neue'; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p3 {margin: 0 0 0 0; font: 13.4px 'Helvetica Neue'; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p4 {margin: 0 0 0 0; font: 12.6px 'Helvetica Neue'; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p5 {margin: 0 0 0 0; font: 12.1px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #000000; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); -webkit-text-stroke: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5)}
p.p6 {margin: 0 0 0 0; font: 15.2px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #000000; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); -webkit-text-stroke: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5)}
p.p7 {margin: 0 0 0 0; font: 22.8px 'Helvetica Neue'; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
span.s1 {font: 22.8px 'Helvetica Neue'; font-kerning: none; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: 0px #000000}
span.s2 {font: 16.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; font-kerning: none}
span.s3 {font-kerning: none}
span.s4 {font: 12.6px 'Helvetica Neue'; font-kerning: none; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); -webkit-text-stroke: 0px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5)}
span.s5 {font-kerning: none; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); -webkit-text-stroke: 0px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5)}
span.s6 {font: 13.4px 'Helvetica Neue'; font-kerning: none; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); -webkit-text-stroke: 0px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5)}
span.s7 {font: 13.4px 'Helvetica Neue'; font-kerning: none}
span.s8 {font: 16.1px 'Helvetica Neue'; font-kerning: none; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: 0px #000000}
span.s9 {font: 16.1px 'Helvetica Neue'; font-kerning: none; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); -webkit-text-stroke: 0px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5)}

.front { font-size: 1.5em; }
.back { text-align: left; }
.context { text-align: left; }
p.p1 { font-size: 1em; margin: 0.4em 0; }
p.p2 { font-size: 1em; margin: 0.2em 0; }
p.p3 { font-size: 0.85em; margin: 0.3em 0 0.3em 0.7em; }
p.p4 { font-size: 0.8em; margin: 0.4em 0; }
p.p5 { font-size: 0.75em; margin-top: 1em; border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc; padding-bottom: 0.2em; }
p.p6 { font-size: 1em; margin: 0.2em 0; }
p.p7 { font-size: 1.375em; margin: 0.5em 0; }
span.s1 { font-size: 1.375em; }
span.s2, span.s8, span.s9 { font-size: 1em; }
span.s4 { font-size: 0.8em; }
span.s6, span.s7 { font-size: 0.85em; }

Resources

• Word frequency data