Linux: Obsidian exporting to pdf produces white text on white when color scheme is set to adapt to system

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21

that works but its still unexpected behaviour

22

I would like to know if this happens with the latest appimage from our website. Thanks

23

behavior running 1.6.5 appimage is: Base color scheme = …

  • Dark, Light: pdf export works as expected
  • Adapt to system: broken, white text on white background
    tested on Fedora 40, Gnome 46, Wayland
24

In August 2024 with Obsidian 1.7.0, what’s the suggested method for debugging @media print / .print CSS?

25

Linux mint, same issue.
CSS isn’t able to render normal character font in exported PDFs, if Obsidian is set to follow the system theme.

light or dark mode PDF exports are fine, but not if obsidians is set to use adaptive mode

1 Like
26

How on earth is this still an issue. I had to create an account to bump a thread from mid year? Why on earth would you export with white text. Fix this. Create an option of background foreground color. Default to Black Text on White Background. This seems super amateur for such a great product.

I really like your product, this is the first time I’ve encountered something absolutely terrible about it.

1 Like
27

This also happens in Arch Linux, where Obisidian is provided as an Electron App.
Switching to a manual theme fixes the problem, as already hinted here.

28

Can confirm, using Arch (btw) and changing the default theme worked.

29

Steps to Reproduce:

  1. Open Obsidian (v1.7.7).
  2. Navigate to Settings > Appearance and set the Base color scheme to Dark or leave it as “Adapt to system.”
  3. Create or open a note.
  4. Export the note to PDF by selecting Export to PDF.
  5. Open the exported PDF file.

Expected Result: The exported PDF should display black text on a white background, ensuring it is both readable and printer-friendly.

Actual Result:

  • When set to “Dark Mode,” the PDF has a black background with white text, making it unsuitable for printing.
  • When set to “Adapt to system,” the PDF generates a white background with white text, rendering it invisible unless highlighted.
  • While it’s possible to use CSS to address these issues, the export should work correctly out of the box without requiring manual intervention.

Environment:

  • Obsidian Version: 1.7.7
  • Operating System: Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS
  • Community Plugins: None
  • Custom CSS: None

Additional Information: This behaviour appears to stem from Obsidian’s PDF export directly mirroring the active theme or system settings. While this may be visually consistent, it creates issues for users needing standard, printable PDFs. Switching to light mode before export resolves the issue, but this workaround is unintuitive.

Suggested Solution:

  1. Introduce an option to enforce a standard light theme (black text on white background) for PDF exports, regardless of the active appearance setting.
  2. Provide a toggle during export to allow users to select the desired output format (dark/light).
  3. Ensure the “Adapt to system” setting produces a readable and printable PDF format by default.
  • We only consider bugs that are reproducible in the sandbox vault or a vault with no third-party plugins/no css snippets/default theme.
  • For Linux, we only accept bug reports that are reproducible with our Appimage or Snap package under Gnome or KDE.
  • Developer issues with the API should go here
  • Themes and Custom CSS issues should go here
  • Translations issues/improvements should be posted here
  • Obsidian Clipper Bugs should be posted here
  • Obsidian Importer Bugs should be posted here

Once you’ve done the above, delete everything above this line.

Steps to reproduce

Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [Y/N]

Expected result

Actual result

Environment

Additional information

1 Like
30

I made an account to bump this thread. I recently discovered Obsidian and LOVE it. But this bugged me a bit. I am on Arch Linux latest installed from yay and this still happens.

31

Another arch user, installed 1.8.9-2 via the “extra” repository, still getting this issue

32

@WhiteNoise This bug happens for me running the newest Appimage, version 1.8.9

33

The issue is still present as in v1.8.10 im using the flatpak but im sure it also occurs in other packaged versions. The issue for now can be circumvented by either:

  1. Setting the color scheme in the Obsidian Appearance Settings to “Dark/Light” instead of “Adapt to System”
    or
  2. If you temporarily turn your system into light mode using a toggle e.g. the gnome toggle

Sadly its still not resolved after a whole year :c