How to link a local file in Obsidian?

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#1

How to link a local file in Obsidian?
Like a csv file being located on file:////Users/bruno/Dropbox/Obsidian\ Vaults/ClippingContents/statswords.csv
Usually with image or pdf, we would have This is an Image, therefore how to get that csv file location in Obsidian.
Thanks

#2

markdown link will work for you: [filename](file:///<absolute-path>)

for your case it would be [statswords.csv](file:///C:/Users/bruno/Dropbox/Obsidian/Vaults/ClippingContents/statswords.csv)

Note that any whitespace in the path should be replaced by %20

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#3

Also, you can simply type [[ and then start entering filename if it’s below Obsidian vault in the folder structure.

#4

I have tried and it does not seem to work, even though tried to get that file in the vault (either xlsx or csv file) they are both not taken in.
Thanks

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#5

Is there a proper way of doing this, because it works whether I use back slashes or forward slashes in everything after file:///. For example, both of these work:
file:///D:\film\filmname.mp4 and file:///D:/film/filmname.mp4

I just want to ensure that I won’t have to go through all my files later and replace slashes.

#6

I tried to apply the answers in this thread to create a link in Obsidian to an external, local file on my hard drive but unfortunately I couldn’t get it to work. I was careful to check all the things I might be doing wrong but I just could’t get it to create a link. The file is an MP4 file on a local, internal hard drive. Ideally I wanted to create a link to the enclosing folder. I guess I will keep looking and trying to learn more in hopes of figuring it out. Thanks.

#7

I have managed to make this sort of work but most of my files and folder names have got spaces in them so need the %20 adding.

Is anyone aware of an easy way to create a URL with the space code already in it? I am on a Mac.

#8

I use Service Station for this. It can add custom scripts to the Finder right-click menu. So I have a little script that grabs the filename and url-encodes it into an Obsidian-format link.

I also use that same script in an Alfred workflow, so I can do the same thing for any file/folder that I search for in Alfred.

Here’s a link to a gist of my script, in case anyone wants to borrow it.

#9

You don’t have to replace spaces if you enclose your path in <> :

[Text](<file:///path to file.pdf>)

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