Obsidian Markdown Formatting Guide

This Obsidian cheat sheet provides a quick reference for essential Markdown formatting and features within the Obsidian note-taking application. Master these elements to enhance your productivity and organization.

For detailed information, refer to the official Obsidian Basic Formatting Syntax.

Obsidian Callouts

Callouts are a powerful way to highlight important information. Create them using a chevron followed by the callout type.

> [!info]- Expand to see more
> This is the detail area.

Explore different callout types like [!note], [!tip], [!warning], and [!danger] to categorize your notes effectively.

Obsidian Date and Time Insertion

Quickly insert the current date and time using keyboard shortcuts.

Press Ctrl + P (or Cmd + P on Mac) and type "date" or "time".

Example of inserted date and time:

The date is: 2024-04-18
The time is: 18:04

Default Date Format: YYYY-MM-DD
Default Time Format: HH:mm (24-hour format)
Alternative Time Format: h:mm a (12-hour format with AM/PM)

Customize these formats in Obsidian's settings for personalized note-taking.

Embedding PDFs in Obsidian Notes

You can embed PDF documents directly into your Obsidian notes for easy reference.

![[YourDocumentName.pdf]]

To link to a specific page within the PDF, append #page=N, where N is the page number:

![[YourDocumentName.pdf#page=3]]

You can also control the display height of the embedded PDF viewer by adding #height=[number]:

![[YourDocumentName.pdf#height=400]]

For more details, see Obsidian Help: Embed a PDF in a note.

Obsidian Footnotes

Add footnotes to your notes for citations or supplementary information using standard Markdown syntax.

This is a sentence with a footnote[^1].

[^1]: This is the content of the footnote.

Footnotes provide a clean way to include extra details without cluttering the main text.

Obsidian Horizontal Rule

Create a horizontal dividing line using three or more hyphens, asterisks, or underscores on a line by themselves.

---

Horizontal rules are useful for visually separating different sections of your notes.

Embedding Animated GIFs in Obsidian

Animated GIFs can be embedded in Obsidian notes to add visual interest.

You can drag and drop a GIF directly from a webpage or save it to your Obsidian vault and embed it manually.

![[your-animated-gif.gif]]

Example of an embedded GIF:

For discussions on GIF playback, refer to the Obsidian Forum thread.

Embedding YouTube Videos in Obsidian

Embed YouTube videos directly into your notes using the standard Markdown image syntax.

![](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=your_video_id)

This feature allows you to keep relevant video content within your knowledge base. For more information, see the Obsidian Forum discussion on embedding YouTube videos.