Obsidian notes to PDF,
properly typeset

An Obsidian vault is an ordinary folder of .md files, which makes this simpler than it looks. Open the vault folder and drag the note onto this page. To copy instead, switch the note to source mode first — on the rendered view you will copy formatted text and lose the Markdown structure.

Obsidian adds several conveniences that only mean something inside Obsidian. Outside it they are just characters, so they need converting before the note leaves.

• Wikilinks — [[Note name]] resolves against your vault, which a PDF has no access to. Rewrite them as [Note name](https://…) if readers need to follow them, or leave them as plain text if they are only cross-references
• Embeds — ![[diagram.png]] and ![[Other note]] are Obsidian-only. Standard image syntax works, and an embedded note needs pasting in as text
• Callouts — > [!note] and > [!warning] render as ordinary block quotes, which keeps the text and the indentation but loses the coloured box and the icon
• Dataview and Templater — these are computed when the note is viewed, so what leaves the vault is the query, not its result. Copy the rendered output if you need the table
• Properties and front matter — the YAML block at the top is treated as metadata rather than printed, and the title can be promoted onto a title page
• #tags stay as literal text, which is usually what you want in a printed document

Obsidian prints through the same engine, but it prints the note as it appears in the app. Your theme, your custom CSS and your font size all come along, so a dark theme becomes a dark PDF and a comfortable reading width becomes an odd measure on A4. Here the document is laid out for paper from the start: you choose the page size, margins and typeface, and the preview shows the actual page rather than the app.

Every heading becomes a real PDF bookmark, so a long note stays navigable in a reader's sidebar instead of being one continuous scroll. Turn on Contents in the style panel for a linked table of contents at the front, and Title page to promote the note's title onto its own page. Both are useful for anything you intend to share rather than skim.