Hi,
I am new to markdown and to Obsidian, but so far, I am loving it. My goal is to link all my notes. I understand that I can create links between two .md notes by typing [[ ]].
My main concern is the following: If I try to open the vault in another software (Typora, for example), I see the [[ ]], but the files no longer seem to be linked to each other. I don’t know markdown language yet.
My concern is the following: I want to start linking my thoughts in Obsidian, but I need to know that my work will still be usable if I use the vault folder with another software in a couple of years.
I apologize if the question has been raised before.
Any help on that would be greatly appreciated!
You can deactivate Obsidian’s [[Wikilinks]] function in Settings->Files & Links->Use [[Wikilinks]]. It will then generate Markdown links instead. Those should work in other Markdown applications.
2 Likes
I’ve used a variety of different software on Mac and Android, and not all support the double brackets for links. It’s however a rather common standard within Markdown editors, so it’s possible to find alternatives which do support them.
Furhermore, if you should choose to go another editor/viewer which doesn’t support this style of linking, it’s usually easy to do a search and replace on them to accommodate the alternative syntaxes. I’ve done that a few times, when I’ve switched software during the last decades.
1 Like
Thank you, @holroy! Could you give me a quick example of a search and replace syntax process? I don’t understand how to automatically change [[ to a more complex syntax on hundreds of entries.
Thank you, @Olondre !
If I deactivate/reactivate the Wikilinks, do you know if Obsidian will automatically convert the syntax to all existing notes?
It’s hard to give a generic example, but something like the following could work in some cases, deliberately leaving out the aliased versions:
Search: \[\[([^]]+)\]/]
Replaced into: [$1](http://localhost/$1.md)
But these kind of regexp does depend on your local and personal usage, both in the software it comes from, and the one you want to use it with, so it’s hard to give specific general cases. Usually when I’ve done this transformation (or similar transformations) I’ve tackled it in stages:
- Just searching up what I want to change, to get a view of the various cases.
- Doing one pass for the simple cases (like no aliases)
- Another pass for the simple cases with aliases
- Various more difficult variations, maybe like images, templates and so on
The point I’m trying to convey in both the previous post, and this one, is that if you feel like Obsidian is your choice today, you shouldn’t worry too much about tomorrow. The wikilink style, or double bracket style, of links are a common standard for internal links, even though it’s not supported by every editor out there, nor supported in the original markdown specification.
1 Like
I just tested this. No, it does not. It’s just a switch for every future link you create.
However, there is a Community Plugin called Wikilinks to MDLinks. I never used it, but you could try.
Oh, with that Plugin you would still have to go through link by link. Selecting each link and toggle the Wikilinks to MDLinks function.
1 Like
It looks like wiki-style links are starting to catch on, but they’re still much less widely supported than Markdown links.
If you turn off wiki links as mentioned above, you can still type the wiki syntax to trigger autocomplete suggestions; when you complete the link, it will convert to Markdown.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.