Help required on preparing emails/PDF highlights and notations for import into Obsidian

Knowledge management
,
1

Hi all,

About a week into my Obsidian journey and thoroughly enjoying it so far. Been reading quite a few forum topics on workflows and markdown apps but I’ve not been able to find a process that works for me. Could use some help from folks who have established flows.

I read 2 primary sources of information these days: (1)emails/substack - largely newsletters in email client or substack website on PC desktop, and (2)PDFs - largely nonfiction books.

For (1), I’ve been reading content only on my desktop so as to copy-paste excerpts and my notations directly into Obsidian. This is not my ideal flow as I’m actually on my iPhone and iPad mini more than my desktop, so the backlog of to-reads has really grown…

For (2), I use the app PDF Expert to load my PDFs and highlight and annotate accordingly, and since its saved in iCloud I access said PDF on my desktop once done and again- copy-paste highlights and my notations directly into Obsidian. Also not ideal.

I’m looking for a flow that ideally allows me to:
(1) Read email/website/PDF on either iPhone or iPad
(2) Highlight + Annotate within an iOS app itself
(3) Export highlights and annotations to a markdown file
(4) Save markdown file in iCloud/Dropbox for access on desktop
[In the future when Obsidian’s mobile app is ready I presume(hope) (4) can save direct to Obsidian]

I’ve looked into:

  • Instapaper - Does (1)-but no PDF, (2), BUT (3)export is only at a highlight-block level and not ALL the highlights + annotations across the article. Not sure if I’m missing something.
  • PDF Expert - Already using this, no (3), and its not good with emails too.
  • LiquidText - Tried this, similar constraints as PDF Expert.

Could use recommendations on an iOS app that can read almost anything anywhere, allow you to do highlights and take notes, export all of that jazz into markdown AND save it to a cloud service

Alternatively, is there another workflow I can consider?

2

Seems like I may have found a solution for my needs via a combination of Instapaper and Readwise:

(1) Read email/website/PDF on either iPhone or iPad
(2) Highlight + Annotate within an iOS app itself
(3) Export highlights and annotations to a markdown file
(4) Save markdown file in iCloud/Dropbox for access on desktop

(1) and (2) done almost exclusively in Instapaper. They only have experimental support for PDF highlights now, so the interim process could be to read nonfiction on my Kindle instead which is supported by Readwise.

(3) can ultimately be done by Readwise, which has solid integration with Instapaper (and many others), so it can receive highlights and notes, and then allow export to a few formats including markdown at an article/book-level which is what I was looking for, so that fulfils (4).

Only ‘issue’ is cost- this flow requires the paid versions of both services which comes out to US$30/year and US$108/year for Instapaper and Readwise respectively.

Hope someone out there finds some use for my self conversation ^ above :grin:

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