Octavo Toolbar

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A selection toolbar for Obsidian: select text, pause, and a formatting toolbar appears above the selection. It also includes a configurable Copy as plain text action that strips Markdown syntax before writing to the clipboard.

A companion plugin for Octavo, but it works with any theme.

Features

Group	Buttons	Default	Behavior
Inline	Bold, italic, strikethrough, inline code, highlight, link, clear formatting	On	Obsidian core commands such as editor:toggle-bold and editor:insert-link
Inline	Underline (<u>…</u>)	Off	Built-in fallback; reuses a compatible marker plugin's command if installed
Blocks	H1–H3, bullet list, numbered list, blockquote, code block, task	Off	Core commands such as editor:set-heading-1 and editor:toggle-blockquote
Callouts	One Callout button that opens a type menu (note, tip, important, warning, caution, example, quote)	Off	Adds, removes, or changes > [!type] around the selected block
Copy	Copy as plain text	On	Filters Markdown syntax according to the settings below

Button labels are shown by default. You can turn them off in settings for a more compact toolbar.

Copy as plain text

Select text and click Copy as plain text in the toolbar. You can also use:

• Command palette: Octavo Toolbar: Copy as plain text
• Editor context menu: Copy as plain text
• With no selection, the current line is copied

All filters are enabled by default. You can turn each one off in Settings → Octavo Toolbar → Copy as plain text:

Filter	Removes
Frontmatter	YAML frontmatter at the top of the note
Blockquotes	Leading > markers, including nested > >
Callout headers	> [!note]-style headers, keeping the title and body
Headings	Leading # / ## … markers
Emphasis	**bold**, *italic*, ~~strikethrough~~, ==highlight== markers
Code	Backticks and fenced code block markers, keeping the code content
Lists	-, 1., - [ ] markers, keeping indentation and text
Links / images	[text](url) → text; wiki links and aliases → text
Tables	Table pipes and the separator row; cells are joined with spaces
HTML	<u>, <br>, <span> tags, keeping the text
Math	$…$ / $$…$$ delimiters, keeping the formula
Footnotes	[^1] markers and footnote definitions, keeping the note text
Horizontal rules	Lines made of ---, ***, or ___
Obsidian comments	%%…%% comments

Example: remove blockquotes only. Turn off every filter except Blockquotes. The leading > is removed while **bold**, # headings, list markers, and other syntax stay as written.

Content inside fenced code blocks and inline code is protected from the inline filters, so code such as a * b or <tag> is not altered.

Usage

Select text and pause for about 200 ms (configurable). The toolbar appears above the selection. Press Esc or click elsewhere to dismiss it.

The toolbar only appears in Live Preview and Source mode. On mobile, Obsidian already provides a native formatting toolbar, so this plugin is desktop-only.

Settings

Settings → Octavo Toolbar:

• Popup delay: how long the selection must be stable before the toolbar appears (0–800 ms).
• Show button labels: show text next to icons. Enabled by default.
• Per-button toggles: inline, block, callout, and copy groups.
• Copy as plain text: 14 filters, all enabled by default.

Installation

From the Community plugins directory (after approval)

Settings → Community plugins → Browse, search for Octavo Toolbar, install, and enable it.

Manual installation

<vault>/.obsidian/plugins/octavo-toolbar/
├── main.js
├── manifest.json
└── styles.css

Place the whole octavo-toolbar folder in the path above, restart Obsidian (or reload it from Settings → Community plugins), then enable the plugin.

Compatibility and privacy

• Obsidian 1.5.0+, desktop only (isDesktopOnly: true).
• No network requests, telemetry, ads, or self-updates.
• Reads the current editor selection and writes to the system clipboard. It does not access files outside the active editor.
• Works with any theme. The plugin ships its own styles.css and uses Octavo theme variables when available.

Development

There is no build step. main.js and styles.css are the source and the final artifacts. manifest.json contains the plugin metadata, and versions.json maps releases to the minimum Obsidian version.

License

MIT.