Note-taking with Obsidian

Markdown cheatsheet

Markdown cheatsheet

Below, you find an overview of basic and advanced markdown formatting styles you can use in Obsidian.

You don’t need to know all of this. Use this page as a reference and come back to it when needed.

Basics

Headers

# Heading 1
## Heading 2
### Heading 3
#### Heading 4
##### Heading 5

Heading 1

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5

Emphasis

**Bold text**
 
*Italic text*
 
***Bold and italic text***
 
==Highlighted text==

Bold text Italic text Bold and italic text Highlighted text

Lists

- this is
- an unordered
- list
  • this is
  • an unordered
  • list
1. this is 
2. an ordered
3. list
  1. this is
  2. an ordered
  3. list

Task lists (checkboxes)

- [ ] An open task
- [x] A completed task
  • An open task
  • A completed task
[A link to Google](https://google.com)

A link to Google

You can embed links by putting an ! before the link. This works for some webs content but is especially helpful for videos, e.g.

![](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6ySG7xYgjY)

Internal links are links that link to other files in your Obsidian vault. As soon as you start typing [[]], Obsidian will suggest files you can link to.

[[Markdown cheatsheet]]
[[Markdown cheatsheet|A different display name for the link]]

Markdown cheatsheet A different display name for the link

Also here, you can add ! to embed the content. This is useful to embed PDFs, images, but also other note content, e.g.

![[Markdown cheatsheet]]

You can also link to specific sections of another file using #:

[[Markdown cheatsheet#headers|Check the header section]]

Check the header section

Advanced

Formulas

You can use the Latex Syntax for Formulas. Use $ to enclose inline equations and $$ for blocked equations.

This $\pi = \pi$ is an inline equation

This is an inline equation

$$
\frac{\pi}{2} = \frac{\pi}{2}
$$

Horizontal lines

I add a horizontal line
 
---
 
between these two paragraphs

I add a horizontal line

between these two paragraphs

Quotes

> A wise woman said this thing

A wise woman said this thing

Footnotes

This is a sentence with a footnote. [^1]
[^1]: This is the footnote text

This is a sentence with a footnote. 1

Callouts

There are different type of callout boxes (see below for other types), the default is a note:

> [!note]
> 
> Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet

Note

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet

You can change the title:

> [!note] This has a custom title
> 
> Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet

This has a custom title

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet

You can make the callout foldable by adding a + (unfolded by default) or - (folded by default) after the type:

> [!note]- This has a folded callout
> 
> Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet

Other types of callouts

Depending on what you put in the [], the callout will look differently. Unfold the callouts to see how to do them

Inline code

This `word` is formatted like code because of the backticks.

This word is formatted like code because of the backticks.

Code blocks

The start and end with 3 backticks. After the 3 backticks in the first line, add the language (e.g. R, python, cpp, …)

```R
# This is an R code block
library(tidyverse)
my_data <- read_csv("my_data.csv")
```
# This is an R code block
library(tidyverse)
my_data <- read_csv("my_data.csv")

Footnotes

  1. This is the footnote text ↩