Notes can be viewed in two ways within Obsidian. A document is something else, like a PDF or an image file. In a plain-text markdown file, for instance, if I want to bold some text, I surround it with a double asterisk **like this**.įor me, notes are distinguished from documents in that a note is a markdown file. This is light markup, not as elaborate as, say HTML. Markdown, for those not familiar, is a plain text file in which special markup can be used to format the note. Notes in ObsidianĪ note is just a markdown file (.md) file in Obsidian. When I think about what I want to be able to capture in digital form, I think of notes in two categories: notes and documents. A note can be anything, text, a document, and image. The first 3 episodes establish some basics, beginning here with how I plan on storing my notes. I am using them as a guidepost for getting me to where I want to be. The first 20 episodes in this series build upon one another. If you are not going to use Obsidian, you can safely skip the first three episodes of this series, as they focus on setting a kind of baseline with the tool for moving forward through subsequent episodes. Evernote still works for much of what I’ll be discussing. Of course, if you are following along, you don’t have to use Obsidian. it has a great note-linking function that I will make heavy use of as we progress through this series.files are stored locally instead of on someone else’s server (unless you want to store your files in a cloud system like iCloud, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.).files are plain text, which makes them essentially future-proof.I’ve written about why I want to use Obsidian elsewhere, but the gist of it is: Instead of Evernote, I’ve decided to use Obsidian instead. There is a difference between going completely paperless, and looking to be paperless in the practical sense. In examining the lessons I learned from my paperless experiment, I realized that, as with most things, moderation is key. In the years since, I’ve returned to paper for several things, but still enjoy the efficiencies of having information I need at my fingertips. After several years, my conclusion was that it was not really possible for me to go completely paperless. That series, Going Paperless, was my attempt to use Evernote and other tools to go completely paperless. Nearly 10 years ago, I began an experiment to see if the elusive paperless office was actually possible. Welcome to my blog series, “Practically Paperless with Obsidian.” Foran overview of this series, please see Episode 0: Series Overview.

Going paperless with evernote