Can I use different words to link to the same note?

[Duxell]

I admit that I am a complete novice when it comes to Obsidian and any type of coding language or whatever

What I’m trying to do

If I use [[John Doe]] to link to a note called “John Doe”, I want to use [[John]] to link to the note called “John Doe” as well, is this possible?

[phrostbyte]

Hi Duxell! Yes, you absolutely can do this. You can separate the text that you want to use (the words, as you said) from the actual link address using a ‘|’ character (on the backslash key above the Enter key). For example, if you want to link to the note called “John Doe”, you can do so using any words you want, like this:

[[John Doe|John P. Doe]] or
[[John Doe|The man with the name John]] or even
[[John Doe|J.D.]]

All of those will still take you to the John Doe note if you click on them, but they will show up as the text on the right in the preview mode.

I hope this answers your question. For more detailed information, you can check the Format Your Notes page in the Obsidian Help site. happy editing! o/

Edit: I guess your question was if you could call it John instead of John Doe and still link to “John Doe”. This would be written like this:

[[John Doe|John]]

specifically, but you can use any text on the right side of the ‘|’ character.

[Duxell]

holy SMOKES, thank you my friend, I really appreciate the help.

[phrostbyte]

Any time. It’s my pleasure!

[Ellanxis]

Also, you can use aliases for notes. It’s not the same, but maybe it will be helpful for you.

[FiekeB]

And you can use something called “front matter” or YAML.

Sounds difficult, but it is just some simple code at the top of your note.

So before you write anything else in your John Doe note, type this at the very top, including the3 dashes before and after and then skip a line before you write the actual note: like this

---
alias: John
---

here goes your note text

Now you can link to it as [[John]]

If you need multiple aliases, that is possible as well:

---
aliases: [John, JD, The Fat Guy]
---

that you can link to as [[John]], [[JD]] or [[The Fat Guy]]

[phrostbyte]

An even better idea, and more elegant, too! It’s always nice when you answer a question and learn something yourself. Thank you so much, @FiekeB! <3

[FiekeB]

You’re most welcome, Seán ! I learn a lot here on the Forum and over at the Discord channels too. When I figure something out, I usually go back to my question and answer it myself, along with how I discovered that. Especially for people who are non coders like myself, it may be helpful. It’s totally amazing what Obsidian can do and what all the Obsidianers are able to build with it.

Right now, some of them and myself are in the proces of building a script that can parse a yearly (or monthly!) calendar, with links to all the Periodic Notes: daily, weekly, monthly and yearly! Neatly wrapped in plain markdown tables. I came up with the idea (because I needed something like that) and people started helping me. So awesome! A fork from that will be a kind of calendar too, but then it will serve as a means to put your timed tasks in, like you would in a real agenda. These timed tasks can then be queried in the templates for daily, weekly etc. notes!