What I’m trying to do
I plan on using Obsidian to help consume web and pdf content. Im typically centered around the Data Science and Data Engineering domain.
When consuming pdf content I typically mark it up with highlights and notes. Some of these notes then turn into Anki cards. Polar Bookshelf solved all of this pretty well. With their lack of flexibility in card creation I decided to move away to other solutions.
Ideal workflow
- Use zotero to capture and manage pdfs
- Use obsidian to make multiple kinds of notes as well as anki cards with @Pseudonium 's amazing plugin
- Study relevant concepts in Anki
- Use obsidian to hold/connect other information
There has been some chatter around this:
- Markdown layer on top of pdf - #16 by msteffens
- Create a note that linked to a specific paragraph in a pdf - #15 by ryanjamurphy
There have been some isolated efforts/ideas:
- Create a note that linked to a specific paragraph in a pdf - #20 by Slavomir
- Markdown layer on top of pdf - #18 by msteffens
Things I have tried
Ive searched ways to put as much content in Obsidian as possible, but I have not found a full solution yet.
Partial Solutions using MD-Notes from @argentum
- Zotero 101 - Obsidian Community talks
- Zotero -> zotfile -> mdnotes -> obsidian -> dataview Workflow
- Zotero -> zotfile -> mdnotes -> obsidian -> dataview Workflow
These all work by:
- Having you make notes in zotero-beta or another pdf tool.
- Importing with md-notes
- Annotating those with obsidian.
Shortcomings
- How do you manage updates? Say I import make some obsidian edits, but now I find new stuff to comment/highlight in the pdf?
Questions
- What is the best way to do this now while having a source of truth? Is there a way to leverage dataview and multiple md files such that the md import can be updated without messing up obsidian annotations?
- What is the best way to get more awareness around this pdf gap? I see a lot of heavy (poor) solutions that dont really solve this problem.
Thanks!