Obsidian basics

Create your first Obsidian vault

In Obsidian terminology, a notebook is called a vault.

In the first part of Session 1, we create a vault and learn basic Obsidian features. The official documentation is excellent. If you get stuck, you’ll likely find the answer there. You can also follow Exercise 2 Basics step-by-step to set everything up.

In this session we look at:

• Creating a vault
• Understanding the workspace
• Creating notes and writing using Markdown
• Linking notes
• Adding attachments (images, screenshots) and setting an attachment folder
• Searching your vault
  • The Obsidian search is really great. You can use it to search for text, but also for tags, links, and more.
• Using tags
• Using the command palette (Ctrl/Cmd + P), for example:
  • Insert table
  • Export to PDF
  • Toggle light/dark mode

Recommended settings (optional)

You can open Settings via the gear icon in the bottom-left corner.

Hide the inline title (optional)

By default, Obsidian shows the note title as the first line of the note. To turn that off:

Settings → Appearance → Interface → Show inline title

Change the theme (optional)

Settings → Appearance → Themes → Manage

Browse, install, and switch themes (you can always switch back).

Set a folder for attachments (recommended)

By default, attachments are saved in the main vault folder. To keep things tidy, create a dedicated folder and tell Obsidian to put new attachments there.

• Create a folder for attachments (e.g. attachments or zzz_attachments)
• Open Settings → Files and Links
• Set Default location for new attachments to In a folder specified below
• Enter the attachment folder name (spelling must match exactly)

The setting should look like this:

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