Integrating Microsoft Office documents

Knowledge management
43

Okay, thanks for sharing! Yes, I think having a container note for each document would be ideal (and would help with the exporting problem that mere linking to the docs engenders), but I would be worried that it creates to much busy work in managing the container notes and the metadata.

Good luck! I hope it works for you. I think my needs are similarly structured to yours, so I look forward to researching some of your other contributions here. Cheers.

44

No, I don’t use Microsoft Office at all.

However, for LibreOffice documents links in Obsidian automatically open up Libre Office on my mac and Collabora Office on my iPad and iPhone. I can view and edit the document there if I need to.

That’s pretty much what I do. Any project that ends up having documents that are part of it gets a folder. But I have a LOT of projects that are simple, just the project note where I track tasks related to that project, meeting notes etc. Some projects start out as single notes and then evolve to folders as the project moves forward. I don’t try to decide whether I will need a folder for it ahead of time. Saves me lots of time cleaning up folders with a single document in them.

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45

I’ve had the same issue with Microsoft Office documents in Obsidian. What’s worked for me is using OneDrive for Office files. I keep everything in my OneDrive folder, then link to the files from Obsidian using the file path. It keeps everything synced and easy to access across devices. I haven’t run into any issues this way, plus it avoids the potential syncing problems when you store files directly in Obsidian.

1 Like
46
  1. Upon getting a non-markdown file from a mail or a meeting, I will create two note. The first one is event note like “Meeting People Place Topic YYYY-MM-DD”. The second one is the file briefing note, the content can be very short or empty.
  2. Add ![file briefing note] in the event note.
  3. Enjoy your note. You can add more idea note and link to the file note.
  4. Create a work product note if the file has multiple version.

Be flexiable because the only importing thing is how you genere ideas, and how fast can you search a note. If an Office file is very minor to you, why not just create a file briefing file, simply add source and date, and let it be an orphan file?

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47

If you’re still using Obsidian to gather swathes of Markdown text into a note, I recommend trying out the plugin Latticework. I’ve recently started using it; it’s interesting, like an offline alternative to Hypothesis.

My tip is very off-topic as it has nothing to do with Microsoft Office files, but I still want to mention this.

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48

By the way, another option I’ve tried is exporting essential info as PDFs since Obsidian handles PDFs better. But if you need regular editing, that gets messy fast. By the way, if you’re still using an old version of Office, you might want to check Nerdused for a good subscription deal.

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