I'd like to make paper flashcards of my Skritter vocabulary. It is the most complete listing of the words and characters I should know but I'm stuck with how to print cards from that list. Ideally they'd have the character(s) on one side and the pinyin plus definition on the other side. Yes, I know I can export the list but then what?

Others have mentioned doing this, I think, but I didn't pay attention (since I wasn't interested at the time) so if there's a relevant forum thread, point me there - I didn't find it just now.

The reason for this is that, while skritter has been a great tool for learning characters, I know I need the good old fashioned pencil and paper practice also. My total vocabulary has increased dramatically with skritter but my ability to get them on paper has not kept up. Plus, I do not always have internet access.

One thing we're (one of our interns) is doing on the side is to make a tool to generate really awesome flashcards and worksheets out of your Skritter vocabulary (lists, sections, the whole thing, whatever). She isn't very far along yet, though.

It's a good time to ask this question, though: how interested would people be if we also provided a service to print, cut, and mail these really nice flashcards to you versus just printing them yourself? Would that be valuable? (You'd have to pay some small amount per card.)

I'd rather print them for my home.

Shouldn't be too hard to code a tool that picks from the list and puts 'em into an html table or something that can be printed recto-verso. Or even download xml, excel sheets...

I think that would be much faster and convenient. Sending them won't work out mainly because of test craming: printing right before an exam for quick review. However mailing them is too long and: not free.

Perhaps you should offer both options. Print yourself, or order through you?

A really good way of printing flash cards is to use the printable business cards as flash cards. Just be sure to use the older version which lets you print on both sides.

I'm pretty sure I would print them from home. As an oceanographer, I might even want to print them on waterproof paper, so I could keep them with me on the boat.

Okay, I haven't heard of water proof paper that you can print on but you could use regular paper and laminate it. By the way if you decide to laminate I recommend getting something like this.
http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate.do?dest=2&item=429692
You may want to leave one corner sharp so you can notice upside down and backwards cards easily.

If they were consistently formatted on PDFs I could just as easily have Kinkos do the same thing (but I could also go pick them up the same day).

wow, this sounds like such a great idea. like seriously great, i would love to be able to print out flashcards.

i also think the option to buy nice copies of them would be cool, but i don't know how much take-up there'd be - most people's vocab list grows daily so i'm not sure people would want to pay for something that's out of date before they even get it.

as for exporting generally, i would like to have more options, such as:
-being able to format the export e.g. %simplified %traditional %pinyin or whatever, and have it output like that so that i can use the data however I like (being able to export the mp3s would be great too but i guess there might be a licensing issue there?)
-the export page to remember what was in my last export, and have the option of only giving me 'new' stuff that's been added since then. as it is i'm exporting 2000+ items just to import the 50 most recent into Anki.

but i'm happy to wait :-) one of the best things about skritter is how often it gets improved and updated

Good news - that I am looking for something and it is on the way. Thanks! I am more likely to print them myself mostly because it would be quicker and under my control. I am sure you will generate useful cards - with the flexibility to choose from among the likely front and back side information. I wonder about the ability to create theme-based sets or time-delimited groupings. As aeriph writes, the organization is a challenge and your team has worked on the sorting and grouping of characters and words.
Again, thanks for meeting the need here.

I would probably buy the print-out flash cards if you could ship to Europe.

I would want to print myself, so that I could do it whenever I feel like it.