What is the difference between identical pairs and question-and-answer pairs?

Identical pairs prints each item twice and players look for two cards that are the same. Question-and-answer pairs prints a question and its answer on different cards and players look for a question with its answer, which makes the game a quiz as well.

Do the small numbers give the pairs away?

No. The numbers follow the shuffled layout, so a pair’s two cards have unrelated numbers. They are there so the key can name cards without describing them.

Are my pictures uploaded?

No. They are read on your device and kept in the page while it is open, and the downloads do not contain them. The site’s counters learn only that a deck was made and how many cards it has.

Why was my list refused?

Because at least one card could be taken as the partner of a card from another pair. The message names the lines; usually it is a repeated word or a repeated answer.

Memory Matching Cards Generator

A matching-pairs game — memory, pairs, or pelmanism — is laid out face down, and players turn two cards over at a time looking for a match. It only works if every card has exactly one partner. This makes the cards from what you give it: words or pictures printed twice as identical pairs, or questions and answers printed as two different cards that match each other. Before anything is printed the list is checked for anything that would give a card two possible partners — the same word typed twice, the same picture chosen twice, two answers that are the same number written differently — and the finished deck is read back to confirm it holds exactly the promised pairs, with a key that names each pair’s two cards.

Kind of pairs

Each word or picture is printed twice; a match is two cards that are the same.

Your words, one per line

Each line becomes two identical cards. 2 to 40 items, words and pictures together, up to 60 characters each.

Pictures (optional)

Each picture becomes two identical cards. PNG, JPEG, GIF or WebP up to 5 MB. Pictures are read on this device only: they are not uploaded, saved, or included in the downloads.

Cards per sheet

Seed (optional)

Leave empty for a new layout. The same input and seed lay the cards out the same way while the generator is unchanged; a seed repeats a deck and is not a secret.

What to print

Print a page of card backs after each sheet

Paper size

Print size

Margin

Millimetres of blank edge, 5 to 40.

Turn the paper sideways

How to print this, or save it as a PDF

There is no PDF to download, and there does not need to be. Open the print command in your browser and choose “Save as PDF” as the destination. The page addresses and dates a browser normally prints across the top and bottom are already kept off.
Set the scale to 100%, not “fit to page”. This sheet is already the exact size of the paper you chose, so anything that resizes it makes every measurement on it wrong.
Leave the paper size in the dialog set to the same one you chose here.

The cards will appear here.

What this generator does

Lays your items out as a shuffled deck of matching-pairs cards and checks the deck holds exactly the pairs you gave. The flashcard sheet puts a question and its answer on the two sides of one card, for studying alone; here each half is its own card, face down among the others, so finding the partner is the game.

How to use this tool

Choose identical pairs or question-and-answer pairs.
Type one word per line, or one question and answer per line. For identical pairs you can also add pictures from this device.
Choose how many cards fit on a sheet, and whether to print a sheet of backs after each sheet of fronts.
Press Make the cards. If two cards could be taken for the same partner the lines are listed and nothing is printed.
Print, cut along the dashed lines, and keep the key for checking.

Understanding the controls

Kind of pairs: Identical pairs prints every item twice, and a match is two cards that are the same. Question and answer prints each pair as two different cards, and a match is a question with its own answer. The rule is printed with the key so players know which game it is.
Your words or pairs: One item per line for identical pairs; one question, then an equals sign, a bar or a tab, then its answer for question-and-answer pairs. From 2 to 40 pairs, which is 4 to 80 cards.
Pictures: For identical pairs only. Each PNG, JPEG, GIF or WebP file becomes two cards. A picture chosen twice is refused, because four cards would then match each other; two different photos of the same thing are not detected.
Cards per sheet: Twelve, twenty or thirty. The cards fill the sheet, so fewer cards means larger cards; long words are set smaller only as far as they need to fit.
Card backs and Question or Answer marks: Backs are a full sheet of the same pattern, so after printing on the reverse every card has a back wherever it lands. Marking each card Question or Answer makes question-and-answer pairs easier, because a player knows to turn one of each.
Seed: The layout of the cards on the sheet comes from the seed. The same input and seed give the same layout again while the generator is unchanged.

Worked examples

Eight weather words, identical pairs, 20 cards a sheet: Sixteen cards on one sheet, each word twice, and a key such as “Cards 3 and 11: rain”. With backs chosen, a second sheet of twenty identical backs follows.
Six French nouns as question-and-answer pairs: Twelve cards, six marked Question (le chat, le chien …) and six marked Answer (the cat, the dog …); a match is a word with its translation.
A deck that is refused: With “half = 0.5” and “one half = 1/2” as question-and-answer pairs, the two answers are the same number, so a player turning “half” and “1/2” would have a fair claim. The lines are named and nothing is printed.

Common use cases

Vocabulary practice, with the word on one card and its translation on the other
A picture memory game for young children made from your own photos
Sums and their answers, or terms and their definitions, as a table game
A quiet early-finisher activity that needs no adult to mark it

How this generator works

The list is read first. For identical pairs, two items are a clash if they are the same after ignoring capitals, extra spaces and punctuation at either end, and two pictures are a clash if their files are byte-for-byte the same, which is found from a fingerprint of the file worked out on your device. For question-and-answer pairs the stricter test the loop cards use applies: a repeated question or answer, two answers that are one number written two ways, a question written as another pair’s answer, a sum with the wrong answer, or a sum that works out to another pair’s answer. If anything clashes the lines are listed and no deck is made. Otherwise each pair becomes two cards, all the cards are shuffled into one layout and numbered in that order, and the key records the two numbers of every pair. A separate check then reads the cards and key back: every pair on exactly two cards that show its own two sides, numbers 1 to the card count once each, no clash between pairs, and a key entry for every pair that names its two cards.

Randomness and fairness

One shuffle decides where every card sits on the sheets, and with it the small number printed on each card. It comes from a repeatable sequence started from the seed; when no seed is typed a new one is drawn from your browser’s secure random source and shown. The sequence is for reproducibility, not cryptographically strong, and a seed is not a secret.

For how randomness is produced across the whole site, see how Generate Random works.

Limitations and good to know

Only exact clashes are found. Two different photos of the same dog, or two words that mean the same thing, are not detected.
Pictures are for identical pairs only; a picture matched to a word is not offered.
The downloads list pictures by their label and a fingerprint only, never the picture itself, so a downloaded deck cannot reprint the pictures on its own.
Pictures are kept only while the page is open. Reloading the page or leaving it clears them.
Up to 40 pairs and 60 characters a side.

Common mistakes

Using question-and-answer pairs where two questions share an answer: Players will find a match the key calls wrong. Change one question so its answer differs; the tool names the lines.
Printing backs on plain paper that the fronts show through: Print on card, or print the backs and glue them on; otherwise players can read the cards from behind.

Practical tips

Twelve to sixteen pairs is a long game for young children; start with six to eight.
Print question-and-answer sets on two colours of card, one for questions and one for answers, as well as or instead of the printed marks.

Privacy and your data

Your words, pairs and pictures stay in this page in your browser. Pictures are read from your device into the page’s memory and fingerprinted there; they are not uploaded, not saved, not put in the page address and not included in downloads. The site’s counters record only that a deck was made, refused or failed, and how many cards it had.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between identical pairs and question-and-answer pairs?: Identical pairs prints each item twice and players look for two cards that are the same. Question-and-answer pairs prints a question and its answer on different cards and players look for a question with its answer, which makes the game a quiz as well.
Do the small numbers give the pairs away?: No. The numbers follow the shuffled layout, so a pair’s two cards have unrelated numbers. They are there so the key can name cards without describing them.
Are my pictures uploaded?: No. They are read on your device and kept in the page while it is open, and the downloads do not contain them. The site’s counters learn only that a deck was made and how many cards it has.
Why was my list refused?: Because at least one card could be taken as the partner of a card from another pair. The message names the lines; usually it is a repeated word or a repeated answer.