@LeoLisboa : Did you use the “Template file” within the general settings of the “Book Search” plugin? You have to do it first, then try to create a book note.
I need Your help!
In this forum I shared some useful templates for Zettelkasten users:
Beginning with a reduced set of general templates I’ve started to add some more specialized types. My research leads me to model with like-minded groups of people working with Zettelkasten method. Groups with different learning approach and knowledge intensity.
The survey now is designed to help focus on users with the highest template needs.
Great idea. Yes, I’m interested in more specific templates. Here is my preferred group:
- Researchers & Scholars
- Students & Academics
- Creative Professionals
- Knowledge Workers & Professionals
- Self-Learners & Autodidacts
- General Knowledge Collectors
- Project Managers
- Language Learners
- Data Scientists & Analysts
- Educators & Trainers
- Others (please use comment)
0
voters
Thank You for sharing. 
May I ask, in the simplest terms, what would you do if you had 3 to 5 years of notes NOT in Zettelkasten? Thank you.
@FDCS - I would use the Importer plugin: GitHub - obsidianmd/obsidian-importer: Obsidian Importer lets you import notes from other apps and file formats into your Obsidian vault.
Ohhhh, my wording may have been confusing. I have been using Obsidian, but not Zettelkasten, for a few years now. I was wondering how the transition would go, and whether I needed to spend time refactoring what I have already done
To share my experience: Before using Obsidian my preferred tool for note-taking was Microsoft OneNote. I imported my notes from OneNote to Obsidian in a first step to a separate folder in my vault including all subfolders from OneNote:
Now the content of my notes was allready searchable within Obsidian. 
But I still takes time to revisit my notes, to add a front and a back matter, to add links and tags or to delete them if they seem to be no longer useful. 
You’re not using unique ids (numeral) for your zettels?
No I don’t. My unique ids (characters) are the titles of my notes. For me numerals in the titles are hard to read. The readability of Graph Views would also decrease. What could be the benefit of numeric ids?
I’m not sure because I’m just starting my path. I guess that UIDs made sense in analog Zettelkasten.
1 Like
Not @macio.macias, but I thought I’d chime in.
There are several benefits to UIDs in the Zettelkasten part of my Obsidian.
-
UIDs allow me to start writing a note and leave the title empty while I figure out the essense of the note.
-
UIDs allow me to write a note about some nebulous concept or thought, then write a very lengthy title. (I could still do this using file names, but that would make wikilinks more cumbersome to read.)
-
UIDs allow me to write titles that contain wikilinks and other inline markdown syntax such as math and code blocks.
-
In general, I believe that interlinks should be deliberate. I am not on the “linking just because you can” camp. Searching up another note and copying its filename adds some friction, but it’s at the end of the day a good type of friction.
I use the “Front Matter Title” plugin to show the first heading instead of the filename in file browser and graph view.
Another comment re: bullet points. I know the “Cognitive Style of Powerpoint” that you’re referencing here. However, I think bullet points are OK if you’re writing just for yourself. To quote my own note:
Worth noting that there is some criticism of bullet points. Bullet points are not the best format for presenting something to others. It is completely fine for rapid personal writing, however.
The main reason is because you know the context that you’re omitting from the bullet points.
Catching up on some old issues:
I’ve settled on Obsidian as a PKM tool—Zettlr has some nice features, but, as you say, better to commit to one tool. I’ve tried Zotero and am still learning it. I do a lot of reading on digital devices, but much of that is DRM protected (mostly Nook and the Olive Tree Bible study app). From what I’ve seen, I believe I can use Zotero to manage citations and notes, although I’d really love to sync notes directly from the apps into Obsidian, a la the BookFusion plugin.
I’m still working out my templates and tags. I’m an IT guy but not a programmer, so I’m not sure the external queries will be helpful to me. Thankfully, I’m not on a deadline, so I have time to experiment.
More catching up:
Thanks for the tips! I do most of my reading using the B&N Nook app, and I haven’t looked into how to export notes from that. I also use the Olive Tree Bible study app a lot, and I may be able to export notes from that—I joined their beta test group recently, and I posted a question about notes integration today. The tech who runs the Reddit is pretty responsive, and he hopefully will have some ideas. For non-DRM books, I discovered BookFusion, which has a nice two-way integration plugin for Obsidian.
Maybe one addition to monch1962: Hypothes.is which allows annotating web articles (and pdfs) both in situ and locally. Those I sync to Obsidian with a plugin (templated) too, which uses the Hypothes.is API. In that mix of Zotero, Kindle highlights, and Hypothes.is and a few other things I get most my inputs into Obsidian automatically or easily.
Kindle device will allow for the export of notes to either PDF or CSV file which is what I use and then import notes into Obsidian.
How to use Properties
Properties allow you to organize information about a note. To keep them consistent for later queries, it’s a good practice to start with a predefined set of properties in your templates. Properties can also be used in conjunction with community plugins that can do useful things with your structured data.
The diagram shows all the properties from my templates on one page. If you want to use the community plugin “Book Search”, the given set of properties is mandatory. The highlighted properties (yellow) are used as basic metadata in all given templates.
If this is your starting point with templates and properties, feel free to improve this structure and adapt it to your own needs.
More about: Properties - Obsidian Help
2 Likes