Basic formatting syntax

Learn how to apply basic formatting to your notes, using Markdown. For more advanced formatting syntax, refer to Advanced formatting syntax.

Paragraphs

To create paragraphs in Markdown, use a blank line to separate blocks of text. Each block of text separated by a blank line is treated as a distinct paragraph.

This is a paragraph.

This is another paragraph.

This is a paragraph.

This is another paragraph.

A blank line between lines of text creates separate paragraphs. This is the default behavior in Markdown.

Line breaks

By default in Obsidian, pressing Enter once will create a new line in your note, but this is treated as a continuation of the same paragraph in the rendered output, following typical Markdown behavior. To insert a line break within a paragraph without starting a new paragraph, you can either:

• Add two spaces at the end of a line before pressing Enter, or

• Use the shortcut Shift+Enter to directly insert a line break.

Obsidian includes a Strict line breaks setting, which makes Obsidian follow the standard Markdown specification for line breaks.

To enable this feature:

1. 1.

   Open Settings.

2. 2.

   Go to the Editor tab.

3. 3.

   Enable Strict Line Breaks.

When Strict Line Breaks is enabled in Obsidian, line breaks have three distinct behaviors depending on how the lines are separated:

Single return with no spaces: A single Enter with no trailing spaces will combine the two separate lines into a single line when rendered.

line one
line two

Renders as:

line one line two

Single return with two or more trailing spaces: If you add two or more spaces at the end of the first line before pressing Enter, the two lines remain part of the same paragraph, but are broken by a line break (HTML <br> element). We'll use two underscores to stand in for spaces in this example.

line three__  
line four

Renders as:

line three

line four

Double return (with or without trailing spaces): Pressing Enter twice (or more) separates the lines into two distinct paragraphs (HTML <p> elements), regardless of whether you add spaces at the end of the first line.

line five

line six

Renders as:

line five
line six

Headings

To create a heading, add up to six # symbols before your heading text. The number of # symbols sets the level of the heading (as shown in the Outline).

# This is a heading 1
## This is a heading 2
### This is a heading 3
#### This is a heading 4
##### This is a heading 5
###### This is a heading 6

This is a heading 1

This is a heading 2

This is a heading 3

This is a heading 4

This is a heading 5

This is a heading 6

Bold, italics, highlights

Text formatting can also be applied using Editing shortcuts.

Formatting can be forced to display in plain text by adding a backslash \ in front of it.

**This line will not be bold**

\*\*This line will not be bold\*\*

*This line will be italic and show the asterisks*

\**This line will be italic and show the asterisks*\*

Highlight colors

Highlights support six colors. Add a color emoji immediately after the opening ==:

Without a color emoji, the highlight uses your theme's default highlight color.

You can also choose a color from the formatting menu. Typing == in the editor suggests highlight colors. In Live Preview, placing the cursor inside a highlight shows a color swatch. Select the swatch to change the color.

Internal links

Obsidian supports two formats for internal links between notes:

• Wikilink: [[Three laws of motion]]

• Markdown: [Three laws of motion](Three%20laws%20of%20motion.md)

External links

If you want to link to an external URL, you can create an inline link by surrounding the link text in brackets ([ ]), and then the URL in parentheses (( )).

[Obsidian Help](https://help.obsidian.md)

Obsidian Help

You can also create external links to files in other vaults, by linking to an Obsidian URI.

[Note](obsidian://open?vault=MainVault&file=Note.md)

Escape blank spaces in links

If your URL contains blank spaces, you must escape them by replacing them with %20.

[My Note](obsidian://open?vault=MainVault&file=My%20Note.md)

You can also escape the URL by wrapping it with angled brackets (< >).

[My Note](<obsidian://open?vault=MainVault&file=My Note.md>)

External images

You can add images with external URLs, by adding a ! symbol before an external link.

![Engelbart](https://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Basis/images/Engelbart.jpg)

ALT

Engelbart

You can change the image dimensions, by adding |640x480 to the link destination, where 640 is the width and 480 is the height.

![Engelbart|100x145](https://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Basis/images/Engelbart.jpg)

If you only specify the width, the image scales according to its original aspect ratio. For example:

![Engelbart|100](https://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Basis/images/Engelbart.jpg)

Quotes

You can quote text by adding a > symbols before the text.

> Human beings face ever more complex and urgent problems, and their effectiveness in dealing with these problems is a matter that is critical to the stability and continued progress of society.

\- Doug Engelbart, 1961

Human beings face ever more complex and urgent problems, and their effectiveness in dealing with these problems is a matter that is critical to the stability and continued progress of society.

- Doug Engelbart, 1961

Lists

You can create an unordered list by adding a -, *, or + before the text.

- First list item
- Second list item
- Third list item

• First list item

• Second list item

• Third list item

To create an ordered list, start each line with a number followed by a . or ) symbol.

1. First list item
2. Second list item
3. Third list item

1. 1.

   First list item

2. 2.

   Second list item

3. 3.

   Third list item

1) First list item
2) Second list item
3) Third list item

1. 1.

   First list item

2. 2.

   Second list item

3. 3.

   Third list item

You can use Shift+Enter to insert a line break within an ordered list without altering the numbering.

1. First list item
   
2. Second list item
3. Third list item
   
4. Fourth list item
5. Fifth list item
6. Sixth list item

Task lists

To create a task list, start each list item with a hyphen and space followed by [ ].

- [x] This is a completed task.
- [ ] This is an incomplete task.

• This is a completed task.

• This is an incomplete task.

You can toggle a task in Reading view by selecting the checkbox.

Nesting lists

You can nest any type of list—ordered, unordered, or task lists—under any other type of list.

To create a nested list, indent one or more list items. You can mix list types within a nested structure:

1. First list item
   2. Ordered nested list item
3. Second list item
   - Unordered nested list item

1. 1.

   First list item
   2. Ordered nested list item

2. 2.

   Second list item

   • Unordered nested list item

Similarly, you can create a nested task list by indenting one or more list items:

- [ ] Task item 1
	- [ ] Subtask 1
- [ ] Task item 2
	- [ ] Subtask 1

• Task item 1

  • Subtask 1

• Task item 2

  • Subtask 1

Use Tab or Shift+Tab to indent or unindent selected list items to easily organize them.

Horizontal rule

You can use three or more stars ***, hyphens ---, or underscore ___ on its own line to add a horizontal bar. You can also separate symbols using spaces.

***
****
* * *
---
----
- - -
___
____
_ _ _

Code

You can format code both inline within a sentence, or in its own block.

Inline code

You can format code within a sentence using single backticks.

Text inside `backticks` on a line will be formatted like code.

Text inside backticks on a line will be formatted like code.

If you want to put backticks in an inline code block, surround it with double backticks like so: inline code with a backtick ` inside.

Code blocks

To format code as a block, enclose it with three or more backticks or three or more tildes.

`````
cd ~/Desktop
`````

~~~
cd ~/Desktop
~~~

cd ~/Desktop

You can also create a code block by indenting the text using Tab or 4 blank spaces.

    cd ~/Desktop

You can add syntax highlighting to a code block, by adding a language code after the first set of backticks.

`````js
function fancyAlert(arg) {
  if(arg) {
    $.facebox({div:'#foo'})
  }
}
`````

function fancyAlert(arg) {
  if(arg) {
    $.facebox({div:'#foo'})
  }
}

Obsidian uses Prism for syntax highlighting. For more information, refer to Supported languages.

Nesting code blocks

When you need to include a code block inside another code block (for example, when documenting how to use code blocks), you can use more than three backticks or tildes for the outer code block.

To nest code blocks, use four or more backticks (or tildes) for the outer block, while the inner block uses three:

````md
Here's how to create a code block:
```js
console.log("Hello world")
```
````

You can also mix backticks and tildes. This is particularly useful when working with code that generates other code blocks:

````md
```mermaid
graph TD
    A --> B
```
````

The key principle is that the outer code block must use more fence characters (backticks or tildes) than any inner code block, or use a different fence character type.

Footnotes

You can add footnotes¹ to your notes using the following syntax:

This is a simple footnote[^1].

[^1]: This is the referenced text.
[^2]: Add 2 spaces at the start of each new line.
  This lets you write footnotes that span multiple lines.
[^note]: Named footnotes still appear as numbers, but can make it easier to identify and link references.

You can also inline footnotes in a sentence. Note that the caret goes outside the brackets.

You can also use inline footnotes. ^[This is an inline footnote.]

Use the Footnotes view to see all footnotes in a note.

Comments

You can add comments by wrapping text with syntax is specific to Obsidian. To hide text in other apps, use an HTML comment,. See Obsidian Flavored Markdown for how Obsidian syntax differs from standard Markdown.

This is an %%inline%% comment.

An inline comment can appear anywhere in a line, including in a heading, a list item, or bold text.

A block comment starts when a line begins with ``. A block comment can include blank lines and Markdown, such as headings and lists. Obsidian hides all of it in Reading view.

Text after the closing comment as text, put it in a code span, or add a backslash before each marker.

Escaping Markdown Syntax

In some cases, you may need to display special characters in Markdown, such as *, _, or #, without triggering their formatting. To display these characters literally, place a backslash (\) before them.

\*This text will not be italicized\*.

*This text will not be italicized*.

When working with numbered lists, you may need to escape the period after the number to prevent automatic list formatting. Place the backslash (\) before the period, not before the number.

1\. This won't be a list item.

1. This won't be a list item.

Learn more

To learn more advanced formatting syntax, such as tables, diagrams, and math expressions, refer to Advanced formatting syntax.

To learn more about how Obsidian parses Markdown, refer to Obsidian Flavored Markdown.