Markdown Notes Guide

Tags:: #Basics
Format your notes

Obsidian is a Markdown-based note-taking and knowledge base app.

We currently support the formats below:

Internal linking

Link to a page: [[Internal link]].

Link to a page: Internal link.

Embeds

Embed another file (read more about Embed files). Here's an embedded section:

![[Obsidian#What is Obsidian]]

What is Obsidian

Obsidian is a both a Markdown editor and a knowledge base app.

Used in the most basic way, you can edit and preview Markdown files. But its true power lies in managing densely networked knowledge base.

How do we start creating a network, you ask? Let's first start making some internal links!

Headers

# This is a heading 1
## This is a heading 2
### This is a heading 3 
#### This is a heading 4
##### This is a heading 5
###### This is a heading 6

This is a heading 1

This is a heading 2

This is a heading 3

This is a heading 4

This is a heading 5

This is a heading 6

Emphasis

*This text will be italic*
_This will also be italic_

This text will be italic
This will also be italic

**This text will be bold**
__This will also be bold__

This text will be bold
This will also be bold

_You **can** combine them_

You can combine them

Lists

- Item 1
- Item 2
  - Item 2a
  - Item 2b

1. Item 1
1. Item 2
1. Item 3
   1. Item 3a
   1. Item 3b

Item 1
Item 2
- Item 2a
- Item 2b

Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
1. Item 3a
2. Item 3b

Images

![Engelbart](https://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Basis/images/Engelbart.jpg)

Resizing images

Example of this above image resized to 100 pixels wide:

![Engelbart|100](https://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Basis/images/Engelbart.jpg)

Links

External links

Markdown style links can be used to refer to either external objects, such as web pages, or an internal page or image.

http://obsidian.md - automatic!
[Obsidian](http://obsidian.md)

http://obsidian.md - automatic!
Obsidian

Obsidian URI links

Obsidian URI links can be used to open notes in Obsidian either from another Obsidian vault or another program.

For example, you can link to a file in a vault like so (please note the required encoding):

[Link to note](obsidian://open?path=D:%2Fpath%2Fto%2Ffile.md)

Link to note

You can link to a note by its vault name and file name instead of path as well:

[Link to note](obsidian://open?vault=MainVault&file=MyNote.md)

Link to note

Escaping

If there are spaces in the url, they can be escaped by either using %20 as a space, such as:

[Export options](Pasted%20image)

Export options

Or you can enclose the target in <>, such as:

[Slides Demo](<Slides Demo>)

Slides Demo

Blockquotes

> Human beings face ever more complex and urgent problems, and their effectiveness in dealing with these problems is a matter that is critical to the stability and continued progress of society.

\- Doug Engelbart, 1961

Human beings face ever more complex and urgent problems, and their effectiveness in dealing with these problems is a matter that is critical to the stability and continued progress of society.

Doug Engelbart, 1961

Inline code

Text inside `backticks` on a line will be formatted like code.

Text inside backticks on a line will be formatted like code.

Code blocks

Syntax highlight is supported with the language specified after the first set of backticks. We use prismjs for syntax highlighting, a list of supported languages can be found at their site

```js
function fancyAlert(arg) {
  if(arg) {
    $.facebox({div:'#foo'})
  }
}
```

function fancyAlert(arg) {
  if(arg) {
    $.facebox({div:'#foo'})
  }
}

    Text indented with a tab is formatted like this, and will also look like a code block in preview.

Text indented with a tab is formatted like this, and will also look like a code block in preview.

Task list

- [x] #tags, [links](), **formatting** supported
- [x] list syntax required (any unordered or ordered list supported)
- [x] this is a complete item
- [?] this is also a complete item (works with every character)
- [ ] this is an incomplete item
- [ ] tasks can be clicked in Preview to be checked off

#tags, links, formatting supported
list syntax required (any unordered or ordered list supported)
this is a complete item
this is also a complete item (works with every character)
this is an incomplete item
tasks can be clicked in Preview to be checked off

Tables

You can create tables by assembling a list of words and dividing them with hyphens - (for the first row), and then separating each column with a pipe |:

First Header | Second Header
------------ | ------------
Content from cell 1 | Content from cell 2
Content in the first column | Content in the second column

First Header

Second Header

Content from cell 1

Content from cell 2

Content in the first column

Content in the second column

Tables can be justified with a colon | Another example with a long title
:----------------|-------------:
because of the `:` | these will be justified

Tables can be justified with a colon

Another example with a long title

because of the :

these will be justified

If you put links in tables, they will work, but if you use Piped Links, the pipe must be escaped with a \ to prevent it being read as a table element.

First Header | Second Header
------------ | ------------
Formatting	|  hotkeys

First Header

Second Header

Formatting

hotkeys

Strikethrough

Any word wrapped with two tildes (like ~~this~~) will appear crossed out.

Any word wrapped with two tildes (like ~~this~~) will appear crossed out.

Highlighting

Use two equal signs to ==highlight text==.

Use two equal signs to highlight text.

Horizontal Bar

Use three stars ***, minuses ---, or underscores ___ in a new line to produce an horizontal bar.

Footnotes

Here's a simple footnote,[^1] and here's a longer one.[^bignote]

[^1]: meaningful!

[^bignote]: Here's one with multiple paragraphs and code.

    Indent paragraphs to include them in the footnote.

    `{ my code }`

    Add as many paragraphs as you like.

Here's a simple footnote,[1] and here's a longer one.[2]

You can also use inline footnotes. ^[notice that the carat goes outside of the brackets on this one.]

You can also use inline footnotes. [3]

Math

$\begin{vmatrix}a & b\\
c & d
\end{vmatrix}=ad-bc$

|abcd|=ad−bc

You can also do inline math like e2iπ=1 .

Obsidian uses Mathjax. You can check which packages are supported in Mathjax here.

Comments

Use `You can't see this text
It can span
multiple lines
%%


Here is some inline comments: (can't see it in preview)

Here is a block comment: (can't see it in preview either)

## Callouts

Use the following syntax to denote a callout block: `> [!INFO]`.

Learn more about callouts [here](https://help.obsidian.md/How+to/Use+callouts).

```markdown
> [!INFO]
> Here's a callout block.
> It supports **markdown** and wikilinks.

Info

Here's a callout block.
It supports markdown and wikilinks.

Diagram

Obsidian uses Mermaid to render diagrams and charts. Mermaid also provides a helpful live editor.

```mermaid
sequenceDiagram
    Alice->>+John: Hello John, how are you?
    Alice->>+John: John, can you hear me?
    John-->>-Alice: Hi Alice, I can hear you!
    John-->>-Alice: I feel great!
```

AliceJohnHello John, how are you?John, can you hear me?Hi Alice, I can hear you!I feel great!AliceJohn

Obsidian supports linking to notes in Mermaid:

```mermaid
graph TD

Biology --> Chemistry

class Biology,Chemistry internal-link;
```

An easier way to do it is the following:

```mermaid
graph TD

A[Biology]
B[Chemistry]

A --> B

class A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z internal-link;
```

This way, all the note names (at least until Z[note name]) are all automatically assigned the class internal-link when you use this snippet.

If you use special characters in your note names, you need to put the note name in double quotes.
"⨳ special character"
It looks like this if you follow the second option:
A["⨳ special character"]

Developer notes

We strive for maximum capability without breaking any existing formats, therefore we use a slightly unorthodox combination of flavors of markdown. It is broadly CommonMark, with the addition of some functionality from GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM), some LaTeX support, and our chosen embed syntax, which you can read more about at Accepted file formats.

We intentionally do not support parsing markdown syntax and blank lines within HTML blocks. This is the result of an optimization to handle very large files and to support synchronization between editing and reading mode.

meaningful
Here's one with multiple paragraphs and code.

Indent paragraphs to include them in the footnote.

{ my code }

Add as many paragraphs as you like.↩︎
notice that the carat goes outside of the brackets on this one. ↩︎

Markdown Check Box In Table

| Unchecked | Checked |
| --------- | ------- |
| &#9744;   | &#9745; |