Table of Contents
What are templates
In Obsidian.md you are able to make templates to quickly insert markup into your document. This allows you to keep your vault consistently structured, as well as speed up your work flow.
Why should you use templates for personal knowledge management?
In order to use Obsidian.md effectively for personal knowledge management it’s important to keep your notes consistently structured. A common way of doing this is by adding metadata to your notes so you can easily categorize them. Metadata also allows you to query your notes for powerful insights. Additionally, you can also use plugins like Dataview to create powerful work spaces within Obsidian.md. Since this is not an article about metadata, I am not going to go into too much depth here.
Using templates also speeds up your workflow without you having to worry about remembering how to structure stuff. Basically, templates allow you to quickly add markup to your notes and keep everything consistent.
How to use templates?
Firstly to use templates you need to make sure that it’s enabled in “core plugins”. To find this setting navigate to settings, then click “Core Plugins”, then enable templates.
If you click on the templates settings cog, you’ll be prompted with some additional settings and options.
Pro Tip: Navigate to settings -> Core Plugins -> Command Palette: Here you can pin the “Insert Template” command. Then, all you need to do to insert a template is: Ctrl+P -> Enter -> <Name of template> -> Enter
Do you have some… Template templates?
Yep!
Here are my most frequently used ones:
Generic Note Template
[What is this most related to?]
tags:: #status/note
dates:: {{date}}
people::
relevant::
TRU?:: #TRU/todo
---
#
{{title}}
I use this template 95% of the time. This template ensures that link it to an “MOC” (Map of Content) or relevant note. I don’t take notes out of my inbox unless they’re linking to another note.
“TRU?:: #TRU/todo”, I tag all new notes with this. When I am writing my newsletter I know I can use notes tagged with “TRU/todo”. If the note is not applicable to my newsletter, I’ll remove the tag when I insert the template.
Source Note Template
[What is this most related to?]
tags:: #status/source/articles
dates:: {{date}}
people::
relevant::
This is for content that is not my own. Sometimes I’ll write down a quote, or quote an entire paragraph. This makes sure I can differentiate between other’s work and my own.
Table Template
| Syntax | Description |
| ----------- | ----------- |
| Header | Title |
| Paragraph | Text |
Tables suck in Obsidian.md! So I use this template to quickly insert a table into my document. In addition to this I highly recommend the advanced tables plugin.
Map of content (MOC) template
[[Library]]
tags:: #status/MOC
dates:: {{date}}
people::
relevant::
---
# {{Title}}
Similar to the note template but this is only applied to Maps of Content.
Current note title template
# {{title}}
---
Sorry for my ignorance – do I copy and paste this into a blank note, name the note and move it to the template folder? I don’t know what :: and {{ }} mean or do
______________________
[[Library]]
tags:: #status/MOC
dates:: {{date}}
people::
relevant::
—
# {{Title}}
______________________
Hey Beth, thanks for your question.
That’s exactly what you do!
With regards to “{title}” this is just a variable/place holder that will automatically insert your note’s title when you use the template. As of the latest release of obsidian. this isn’t really necessary because we now have automatic inline titles.
“::” is just a way of telling Obsidian that it’s working with metadata. This isn’t really necessary unless you’re going to be working with dataview.
Thanks so much for your generous information about how to get started with Obsidian!
I wouldn’t call it ignorance, this guide doesn’t mention anywhere how to create & import the template itself.
I don’t understand this
# {{date:DD-MM-YY | dddd}}
Prev: [[ ]] | Next: [[]]
If I run this template it will create a note for today. But if I click the Prev: link it just creates a file with that exact text. Shouldn’t it create a file in the same format as the one I created for today? E.g., 30-10-22 | Sunday, rather than creating a new file with all the link code. Or am I supposed to manually update those Prev and Next links every single day? Thanks.
Sorry, that wasn’t clear. Meaning, if I click the link code for Prev, shouldn’t it create a new note with 29-10-22 | Saturday, rather than a new note that just duplicates # as the file name.
Or am I supposed to manually insert those every single day? That doesn’t seem right. Thanks.
Arg. All the pasted link text is getting stripped out of my posts. I hope you get what I’m trying to ask.