Blanker (convert text to underlines for fill-in-the-blank worksheets and flashcards) [Beta]

Active recall is a really effective learning technique, and one way I use active recall is with fill-in-the-blank worksheets and flashcards. Fill-in-the-blank is also a good way to work on using context clues for vocabulary.

Replacing the key terms with the right number of underlines is really annoying, so I wrote this script this morning. Simply highlight the text you want to replace with underlines and hit Ctrl+Shift+U. By default, the program will replace alphanumeric characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9) as well as accents in Spanish, German, and French. It will leave all other characters such as spaces and punctuation alone.

This script is still in beta and I’m not sure what to call it yet so for now it’s called “Blanker” and it has a default icon (a white H on green background). If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know! Also, this beta version does not start automatically when your computer boots, so remember to run it first when you want to use the Ctrl+Shift+U hotkey.

EXE file: Blanker.v1.0.exe

Source code: Blanker.v1.0.ahk

Since it’s almost Christmas, here’s a short Christmas-themed example. Do you know all the words?

You better _____ ___! Better not ___! Better not ____!  I’m telling you why, _____ _____ is comin’ to town. He’s making a ____ and checking it twice. He’s going to find out who’s _______or ____. _____ _____ is comin’ to town. He sees when you’re ________. He knows when you’re _____. He knows if you’ve been bad or good. So __ ____ ___ ________ ____!

nice