I am really really enjoying Obsidian coming from Notion. But one thing I miss is the ability to create tables. The reason for this is that tables allowed for pages to have properties, that created an opportunity for some stricter organization (for instance, every movie I saw had its own page with a Rating)
In Obsidian, I have a few options. I can tag pages in a way that recreates the properties I had in notion. I can then put related pages in a folder or create a page that groups all the related pages into a list/table-like thing. (I even thought to go so far as creating .csv files in the root of folders that could store properties for the .md files inside)
I am trying to embrace a more loosely structured knowledge hive, but am not sure the best way to go about this. Right now, I am using folders to separate notes that have a somewhat specific type, and trying to see if I can get all the property like things I want from tags. So all my movie reviews go in a Movies folder, and each has a single rating tag like #good#great#amazing
What do you think of this? Am I just trying to do something that I shouldn’t in Obsidian? I have the vague impression that I rarely need to recall notes in a structured manner, so maybe I just need to relax and not think about putting them in a structured way (I probably did this more from OCD and it was easy to do in Notion). But deep down I am scared of a vault with just a root directory of tons and tons of tagged and linked files! Just kind of feels disorganized, even though I guess the structure is all there…
When structure reduces friction, it’s good.
When it increases friction, it’s bad.
When your experience of friction changes, change your structures.
Obsidian can work any which way.
I haven’t tried it, but I think you could create a table in Typora (easier for most people than typing it in markdown), copy the markdown to Obsidian and make that table into a template.
Of course that would just be a table whereas the Notion ones are something more.
Right now i am using the plugin “Kanban” which resembles the Notion’s board, but for my use case it’s not really like a Notion table, the signle tabs can be quickly moved around, but it’s not really it, i’m too looking for a plugin like a Notion table too.
I definitely agree that Obsidian tables should have Notion-like functionality. I got so fed up with this that I recently decided to make my own plugin.
It is called “Notion-Like Tables”. It is currently in beginning stages, but I welcome any feedback. It will hopefully be released to plugin store this week.
I’m having trouble creating new columns and rows. I have the last header containing only white space. When I click the keyboard shortcut for new column/row, a message comes up saying that I need to have a focus table. How do I do that, other than click inside the table? There’s a blinking cursor in my table but the keyboard shortcut still doesn’t work.
Hi miscellane. Sorry, I have been a little busy recently. I will be pushing a new major release today (4.0.0) that will include a fix for this. Please open an issue if it continues. Thanks
(Didn’t know how to contact you and I didn’t want to spam the github of the plugin)
After installing the plugin, creating a new table (following the instructions under Basic Usage), and restarting Obsidian, I can’t see the notion features of the table. Table stays as if I wouldn’t have installed the plugin.
Not sure if I’m doing something wrong (I am not a Obsidian power user) or it could be that there is a conflict with another plugin?
Thanks for reaching out. I think either the issues or discussion section of the repo would be an appropriate place for a question like this. I am also on the Obsidian discord. I will be releasing Notion-Like-Tables 5.0 this week which will include bug fixes for more than half my issues list + more. If after the update you still have trouble, please consider opening an issue.
