# How to Connect Obsidian with EBooks **URL:** \ **Category:** Workflows & Templates\ **Created:** [January 14, 2021, 3:10am UTC](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/how-to-connect-obsidian-with-ebooks/11418 "2021-01-14T03:10:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Aonto](https://forum.obsidian.md/user_avatar/forum.obsidian.md/aonto/32/479_2.png) [@Aonto](https://forum.obsidian.md/u/Aonto)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 3:10am UTC](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/how-to-connect-obsidian-with-ebooks/11418/1 "2021-01-14T03:10:57Z")
Although the title I use is _How to Connect Obsidian with Books_, the showcase introduced here can be used in all note-taking software (include Typora, Roamresearch, etc. ) to make at least one-way link between notes and documents, like books–\>Typora, Roamresearch, Logseq, etc. # First You need at least two softwares(and three plugins btw) to connect books with Obsidian. - [Zotero](https://www.zotero.org/download/)(at least ver 5.0)(Help you with connect pdf books with Obsidian) - [Mdnotes](https://github.com/argenos/zotero-mdnotes) - [Zotfile](http://zotfile.com/) - [Better bibtex](https://retorque.re/zotero-better-bibtex/) - [Calibre](https://calibre-ebook.com/download)(at least ver 5.9.0 )(Help you with connect non-pdf books with Obsidian) Links to download these softwares or plugins are at the end of article. Next, I will show you how to connect obsidian with books by using these softwares and plugins. # Second ## Zotero Zotero cooperates with Zotfile to support the extraction of notes or highlights in pdfs, which gives you corresponding positions of those notes or highlights and content of them. **For exmaple** , you got a `Book.pdf` with many notes or highlights, now you import it into Zotero, you will get a item named `Book`. Then, click the `Manage attachment->Extract Annotations` in the context menu of the item. Gotcha, you get all notes or highlights of `Book.pdf` and the positions of them. ![Obsidian 如何与书籍联系 1](https://forum.obsidian.md/uploads/default/original/2X/e/eac76d6effa1d3edf9b852fe3f5723970f7d6f53.png) You can just copy them on the Notes pane in zotero, but now you have another way to make things perfect. By using Mdnotes, these notes can be transformed into more MD-like notes. Like screenshot as followed. ![Obsidian 如何与书籍联系 2](https://forum.obsidian.md/uploads/default/original/2X/7/76815d8a2f49ea1fd2be2a306625ae34a82a8608.png) When you click on any link near these notes, you can jump to positions of the notes or highlights you took. You can jump to the original text to view the context. PS: Zotero using URI(like obsidian did) to let you jump to specific page. The link it generated seems like ``` [note on p.?](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/GIBFC4MH?page=5) ``` PLUS workflow: - Copy notes URL to make them a hyperlink that links to the notes or highlights, which means Obsidian\<–\>Pdf ## Calibre Calibre is a book manager with a **slow opening** book viewer, the book viewer supports near all kinds of ebooks on the web. Before Calibre ver 5.9.0 released, I used it to transfer or manage my ebooks. But release of Calibre ver 5.9.0 makes things change: it allows you to jump to location of the notes or highlights of the book like Zotero( Also like Obsidian) Use book viewer of Calibre to read book, take notes in it or highlight text in it. Then close the book and press `B` key on your keyboard, select the `Export all selected` in the lower right corner of the panel (Sorry I was using CN-GUI) ![Obsidian 如何与书籍联系 3](https://forum.obsidian.md/uploads/default/original/2X/b/b81c635ad92ef0125f50f6a944aa1406f1983032.png) A pop-up menu will let you choose what format to export or copy directly to the clipboard. ![Obsidian 如何与书籍联系 4](https://forum.obsidian.md/uploads/default/original/2X/3/3c873649562404655a5dac76f21bf3b94a6972e8.png) Finally, you get all your notes on your books as follow. ![Obsidian 如何与书籍联系 5](https://forum.obsidian.md/uploads/default/original/2X/c/cb778a1e89b42c20ec9b6e81ab195dd06d4df4da.png) Just enjoy jumping from notes to ebooks. # WHY If you ever tried zettelkasten or read _how to take smart notes_ , you do know how important for people to take literature notes. Notes with a jump-able link are helpful for people to read context or trace to the source. # Final Some methods or techniques have been shared in the forum, I just did a small job of integrating these techniques or methods. Hope these would be helpful for you. ---
**Author:** ![nickchomey](https://forum.obsidian.md/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/3ab097/32.png) [@nickchomey](https://forum.obsidian.md/u/nickchomey)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2021, 3:30pm UTC](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/how-to-connect-obsidian-with-ebooks/11418/2 "2021-01-22T15:30:00Z")
Thanks for sharing. I’ll just add that further features have been added to calibre in recent versions, such as having a link export button in the toolbar. [https://calibre-ebook.com/whats-new](https://calibre-ebook.com/whats-new). The dev is somewhat prickly, but is generally quite open to feature requests. ---
**Author:** ![Aonto](https://forum.obsidian.md/user_avatar/forum.obsidian.md/aonto/32/479_2.png) [@Aonto](https://forum.obsidian.md/u/Aonto)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2021, 2:34am UTC](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/how-to-connect-obsidian-with-ebooks/11418/3 "2021-01-25T02:34:57Z")
Thanks for telling me about this. ---
**Author:** ![tian](https://forum.obsidian.md/user_avatar/forum.obsidian.md/tian/32/2624_2.png) [@tian](https://forum.obsidian.md/u/tian)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2021, 8:08pm UTC](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/how-to-connect-obsidian-with-ebooks/11418/4 "2021-02-10T20:08:38Z")
Note also that epub books are just plain old HTML in a zip file. I tend to unzip mine and then manually convert them to MD for obsidian. This does take some time (you could use pandoc, but I havent figured out how), but it means that I do both my reading and note taking in obsidian. ---
**Author:** ![nickchomey](https://forum.obsidian.md/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/3ab097/32.png) [@nickchomey](https://forum.obsidian.md/u/nickchomey)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2021, 6:03pm UTC](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/how-to-connect-obsidian-with-ebooks/11418/5 "2021-02-13T18:03:39Z")
That’s very intriguing… Do you convert them to a single Md file? Different ones for each chapter? Does it maintain formatting? What about pictures? ---
**Author:** ![tian](https://forum.obsidian.md/user_avatar/forum.obsidian.md/tian/32/2624_2.png) [@tian](https://forum.obsidian.md/u/tian)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2021, 12:45pm UTC](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/how-to-connect-obsidian-with-ebooks/11418/6 "2021-02-14T12:45:13Z")
I don’t recommend my workflow 🤣 unless you have a specific need like mine (I tend to spend a lot of time on a single book, so it balances out): 1. Right click epub \> extract (you may need to rename to .zip, or use 7zip) 2. Create an index page in obsidian, copy and past the TOC page 3. For each chapter, create a page, link from TOC page 4. For each chapter, copy and paste into obsidan 5. Find and replace all epub links with obsidian links When it comes to referencing, then I just hit `[[^^` to find the paragraph. Picture are usually in the “resources” folder, so I just use `![[` to inline these. Re. Formatting, most of my books (corporate strategy, philosophy and psychology) comes across just fine, _however_, textbooks do not - I haven’t figured this out yet… ---
**Author:** ![nickchomey](https://forum.obsidian.md/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/3ab097/32.png) [@nickchomey](https://forum.obsidian.md/u/nickchomey)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2021, 3:12pm UTC](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/how-to-connect-obsidian-with-ebooks/11418/7 "2021-02-15T15:12:57Z")
Thanks! I’ll stick with Ebooks in calibre and its annotations and URL links. ---
**Author:** ![Archie](https://forum.obsidian.md/user_avatar/forum.obsidian.md/archie/32/16428_2.png) [@Archie](https://forum.obsidian.md/u/Archie)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2021, 4:08pm UTC](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/how-to-connect-obsidian-with-ebooks/11418/8 "2021-02-15T16:08:18Z")
I think,we can convert epub to PDF via Calibre and then convert PDF to MD via Obsidian’s PDf to MD plugin. ---
**Author:** ![Aonto](https://forum.obsidian.md/user_avatar/forum.obsidian.md/aonto/32/479_2.png) [@Aonto](https://forum.obsidian.md/u/Aonto)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2021, 2:11am UTC](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/how-to-connect-obsidian-with-ebooks/11418/9 "2021-03-04T02:11:03Z")
I did same conversion by using calibre. And then read the book in Obsidian. ---
**Author:** ![Wen](https://forum.obsidian.md/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Wen](https://forum.obsidian.md/u/Wen)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2021, 2:23pm UTC](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/how-to-connect-obsidian-with-ebooks/11418/10 "2021-04-02T14:23:26Z")
This is very interesting! Did you convert the book into Markdown? Can you be more specific about this how to do this in calibre? It would be interesting to be able to read the book directly in Obsidian. Then one can easily write literature notes and block link to specific locations in the book. ---
**Author:** ![TheAd](https://forum.obsidian.md/user_avatar/forum.obsidian.md/thead/32/7149_2.png) [@TheAd](https://forum.obsidian.md/u/TheAd)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 6:11am UTC](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/how-to-connect-obsidian-with-ebooks/11418/12 "2021-05-11T06:11:45Z")
> [@Workflow : Reading Ebook(epub, mobi, azw, etc ) in Obsidian](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/workflow-reading-ebook-epub-mobi-azw-etc-in-obsidian/17977): > > Since Obsidian can’t render the epub file as it does to a pdf file, the best way to read the epub ebook in the obsidian is by combining the calibre content server and iframe html. It would be helpful for those who want to take notes from the ebook side by side using obsidian. The first step would be starting up the content server. For that go to open calibre - go to preferences - go to sharing over the net - click start server - note down the IP and port. Open obsidian and copy-paste the … ---
**Author:** ![issam-Dev](https://forum.obsidian.md/user_avatar/forum.obsidian.md/issam-dev/32/33829_2.png) [@issam-Dev](https://forum.obsidian.md/u/issam-Dev)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2022, 9:36am UTC](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/how-to-connect-obsidian-with-ebooks/11418/13 "2022-10-02T09:36:55Z")
I have problem with Calibre link : when clicking on it the app doesn’t open **Example :** `[link](calibre://view-book/_hex_-43616c696272655f426f6f6b73/34/EPUB?open_at=epubcfi(/2/2/4/2@50:50))` ![image](https://forum.obsidian.md/uploads/default/original/3X/2/0/209537b5ae5124b8f80692f339b551111dd94643.png)