I’d like to be able to print a note directly from Obsidian. Electron has an API to support this: contents.print
Proposed solution
Add a print command to the app. Have a way to specify the options that make sense from the Electron API. Assume you need to switch the note into reading mode to do this for you have the contents displayed that the user would want to print, but perhaps you can print from any of the modes what is seen on te screen.
Current workaround (optional)
Export using one of the plugins or to PDF and then print. Copy, paste and print in another app.
Seems like this would be a roadmap item – anybody have insight here? Also, I don’t know what OP means by ‘Electron has the API’ (sorry I’m new to the forum).
Printing is the one missing feature for me (well, Print-Preview also). Anything else can be handled by changing my workflow, learning new tools, etc. But printing – I need to be able to quickly compose a document, print a couple copies, and jump into a meeting. Right now I reach for Word, G-docs, etc., and then spend time copy/pasting content into Obsidian for record-keeping.
I’m happy to support a dev who makes a plugin, or whatever else I can do (short of coding, which I can’t do) to make this happen.
8)
I check back every now and then to see if this has been resolved. It’s the only significant pain point that remains in my Obsidian workflow and the barrier to colleagues, friends, and family accepting it as a usable notes solution.
This has finally hit my threshold for pain. Exporting to PDF, then finding the exported file, then printing, then remembering to delete the exported PDF.
I just find it hard to believe that a modern-day application (which I love) doesn’t have a native print command.
Sorry, I disagree. There is no modern day application that I can think of where you can’t simply print the current file, view, whatever. IMHO this is a shortcoming.
Not to contradict you, but page layout and page break as well as the overall look of a page changes significantly when you export markdown as pdf.
The small thumbs in a printer dialog are insufficient to display how a final print may look like.
Markdown isn’t same as rich text and needs a quick inspection before printing, therefore I don’t really understand your point.
A regular print dialog has some more options than Obsidians one, but just some. I don’t see that big surplus advantage in regular print dialogs…so i think this request is more a need to uniform Obsidians look in comparison to standard applications behavior.
I think this is an extreme use case. Normally you want to be absolutely sure what you are getting out when printing because these documents are intended to be used by many people. @Jopp described that process when using mac.
If you want to have fluid printing experience for solo use without using extra software, then a plugin has its place here imo. Plugins are intended to give satisfaction and peace of mind. Maybe some plugins can drastically improve certain workflows, but if these plugins are highly recognized, then everyone should ask why these plugins are not adapted as core plugins to be recognized even larger audience. We could also go other way: instead of presenting users core features as core plugins, we could have just one type of plugins that are all disabled by default. Then users could decide by themselves what features they want to use. Obviously we already have this kind of system, but having two different types of plugins can be confusing, especially if some core plugins are enabled by default and some are not.
All I want for Xmas……is a response from someone on the Dev team as to why this universal option, printing, is NOT available already. Is it a limitation of the software chosen, be it either Electron (Mac) or Capacitor (iOS/iPad OS) or some other rationale. Just post the explanation here in the Help Vault when someone searches for how to…PRINT!
sorry @blue_emporor I disagree. Obsidian isn’t a print layout tool, nor is it a WYSIWYG editor… I’m not publishing. If I have some simple notes that I want to print, it is just not a simple task in Obsidian.
Every plain text editor I have ever used includes a Print command. At its roots, Obsidian is a (albeit Markdown rendered) plain text editor. I would think that given it is supported in the underlying software stack (as I understand it anyhow)…I see no reason why it shouldn’t be supported / enabled in Obsidian.
OK, so we agree to disagree. I see “printing” as basic functionality of most any UI based modern application. I don’t see it as an edge case, or extreme use case.
Agreed. There’s a plugin to “copy as HTML”, maybe there could be a plugin to print that HTML formatted content. But yes, printing a note should be a basic feature.
I’m with you. I’ve been using Obsidian for a few years now and this lack of support has always surprised me.
PDFs, in general, feel more like a “finished product” type of file. For lists, notes, even some longer-form content you may want to take a pen to for editing, an MD (HTML formatted or not) or TXT file has plenty of information for a work-in-progress note like that. I’m almost assuredly changing or deleting the file after printing and don’t need a second copy of it as a PDF.
Now, for a more “deliverable” product, by all means the PDF route is fine.
But for so many users:
Printing simple notes on a daily basis is an extremely common use case.
I would love to be able to simply print a plain text or rich text version of my notes. I rarely use a word processor anymore, and this is a really basic feature that would be a big help. I don’t want to Pandoc to pdf or docx and open another program when I want to print a simple note.
There might be some solutions you could use to make printing more fluid process. I haven’t used it, but see Shell commands plugin. The idea is to use some command utility to directly print md-files. The exact solution varies by OS (linux, mac, windows).
I was quite surprised to see that this wasn’t already here.
I’m not looking for any fancy layout options; just to print the rendered markdown as it appears on screen.
I can’t see any comment from any Obsidian devs as to if this will ever be available. Is there a roadmap anywhere?
