Plugin

How I Optimize Book Writing With Obsidian Plugins

Sarah Brennan ·

✏️ Plugins For Writers

As I write a book with the help of Obsidian plugins, I want to share an updated list that I’m currently using. I’m not using Obsidian for a PKM. This is a solely for book writing and organization of parts. As I become more familiar with plugins like Dataview and Templater, I’ve discovered just how powerful these plugins can be.

I should remind you that all plugins are made by the Obsidian community, so if you find these plugins as useful to you as they are to me, don’t forget to tip the creator if they have donations available.

I am currently writing a book about my family history, and even though my formatting doesn’t have to be perfect, I would like to convert my Markdown from Obsidian to a well-formatted PDF. I found this plugin after finding the native PDF conversion far too basic.

What I love about this plugin is the ability to choose how links are converted into the PDF. You can remove the brackets around links without removing them from the Markdown file. Quote blocks are also formatted properly without the quote block border.

Limitations

  • You have to be comfortable installing Pandoc before using the plugin.

  • Fancy plugins will likely not show in your converted PDF. Keep in mind what works and doesn’t work with PDF export via LaTeX.

 

This plugin was one of the first I installed due to a high volume of tables in my files. Markdown tables aren’t easy to create on the fly, so you’ll need this helper to speed up the process. You simply type “|” then tab to create columns, and enter for rows. In addition to ease of use, these tables can handle spreadsheet formulas!

 

What I love about this indexing method is how effortlessly I can group ideas into easy to read tables. Dataview is an extremely useful tool, and I recommend it for anyone using Obsidian who wants databases in their workspace. It is very easy to understand once you look at an example or two. Essentially, you’re taking the YAML data from the top of all pages that have it, and collecting all pages that prove a rule. For instance, every page that shares the tag #book.

Limitations

  • I expected this to be the case, but yes, you cannot see the table after converting to PDF via Pandoc. I’m creating a few indexes for my book, but they will not be in the style of a table, so this is not a downside for my final product.

Here’s a little tutorial to help you get started:

  • Step 1

    • Create a file in Obsidian with metadata at the top like this:

---

tags: source, record, active

year: 1865

---

  • Step 2

    • Create another file to be your Index page, and create a table:

```dataview

TABLE year As Year, type As Type

FROM #source

SORT year ASC

```

 

Ordinarily, when an image is imported into Obsidian in the editor, it is not viewable until the file is switched to preview mode. I am able to see the image in both edit and preview modes with this handy plugin. Super simple and effective. You can also view iframes, PDF files, and exalidraw. And there’s an option to resize images too with syntax like this: ![100x100](image.png)

 

The Dictionary plugin is a must-have for writers in Obsidian. I use it to find synonyms with the highlight to search. It’s very nice and not too distracting, and Dictionary has a lot to offer in the sidebar too. The features include:

  1. Dictionaries in multiple languages

  2. Advanced synonym search

  3. Word pronunciation

  4. Word origin

 

This plugin is great for files that use a lot of footnotes. I’m using footnotes for sources, but I have also used it to compile a neat list of file references at the bottom of the page.

After installing Footnote Shortcut, head over to your hotkeys in settings and give your footnotes a unique key pattern. Mine is cmd + shift+ 6. Whenever this hotkey is activated after a sentence, the footnote number will appear, then your cursor will jump to the bottom of the page to write the footnote content.

 

Templater can do A LOT for your vault. This plugin is an upgrade from Obsidian’s native template feature. You can automate a workflow that is entirely customizable with an Eta template engine or javascript. The example above is grabbing a file’s name with <% tp.file.title %> and a file’s frontmatter, or YAML metadata, with <% tp.frontmatter[“tags”] %>.

Firstly, identify your template folder location via the Templater settings page. Add all templates in separate files. Upon activating the command palette, search for Templater: Open Insert Template modal. All available templates to choose will be here. You can assign hotkeys for this command via Obsidian’s settings menu.

Documentation for Templater

 

Other Noteworthy Plugins

  • Advanced Appearance: Customize font type, font sizes, accent color and more. I use this to enhance my sidebar font size.

  • Sliding Panes: Open new pages in an accordian style with multiple windows nested horizontally. This is a classic Obsidian plugin everyone should try out.

  • Admonition: If you’re familiar with Notion, this works like a callout. You can create highlighted blocks that stand out from plain text.