#1

Things I have tried

Selecting non-contiguous text using the macOS keyboard shortcut
Searching for the problem in both the Obsidian help docs and this forum

What I’m trying to do

I’m trying to select non-contiguous text in Obsidian for macOS, but the keyboard shortcut doesn’t seem to work. Is this because there is another shortcut for this action within Obsidian? If not, is there some other way I can configure this in my system preferences on my Mac?

I’d like to select multiple, non-contiguous portions of text and format them the same all at once. For example, say: In a list of vocabulary words and their definitions, selecting two vocabulary words within the list and adding bold asterisks to them, while not bolding their definitions which are contiguous following the vocab word in that line of text.

I am brand new to Obsidian, so I assume there is a reason for this, perhaps as a function of markdown language being incompatible with selecting text this way, or incompatible with the desired outcome of this action. Would you recommend a faster way of accomplishing this?

Thank you!

#2

I’m not familiar with the macOS keyboard shortcut you’re describing. What is it and how is it supposed to work?

In general, Obsidian is based on Electron and CodeMirror. As a result, the text fields we’re manipulating are not conventional text fields, so we lose some operating system-specific features. This likely accounts for the loss of the feature you’re describing, and it also prevents e.g., macOS text replacements from working.

You can select multiple parts of text by holding alt and click+dragging. It’s a little finicky but it should work for the terminology use case you describe. (You can also use alt+click to place multiple cursors in your editor and work on multiple places at the same time.)

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#3

I’m so sorry, I’ve misspoke! It’s not even a shortcut, it’s just a function like you describe. And I forgot to include the actual function!

In macOS, it’s the cmnd + click and drag, instead of alt/option. So yeah, selecting non-contiguous or multiple parts of a text just like you’ve shown.

Thank you, solved!

Have a great one.

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