PDF Highlight Notes

An Obsidian plugin to import, read, and highlight PDFs inside your vault.

If this plugin adds value for you and you would like to help support continued development, please use the buttons below:

  

☕ Buy me a coffee  ·  💙 Donate via PayPal

If you like this plugin or find it useful, please consider giving it a star on GitHub!

PDFs open in Obsidian's built-in viewer. Select a passage and a small floating toolbar appears with two independent actions:

• Highlight: paints a permanent marker highlight into the PDF file itself, like a real highlighter on paper. The ink stays across restarts and is visible in any PDF reader (Preview, Acrobat, …). Colors: yellow (default), green, pink, or blue.
• Save quote: saves the passage as a quote in a companion highlights note, with a deep link that reopens the PDF at that exact passage. The PDF file is not modified. Your quotes are ordinary Markdown: searchable, linkable, and taggable.

Use either one, or both. They don't affect each other.

Commands

• Import PDF files into vault: file picker; copies PDFs into your vault (folder configurable) and opens the first one. Also available as a ribbon button.
• Save PDF selection as highlight: with text selected in an open PDF, saves it as a > [!quote] callout in PDF Highlights/<name> (highlights).md, linked back to the page and selection. Bind this to a hotkey for one-press highlighting. Also available as a ribbon button.
• Open highlights note for this PDF: opens the companion note beside the PDF.

Example highlight

> [!quote] [[PDFs/agent_smith.pdf#page=4&selection=12,0,15,42|p. 4]]
> The measured capability of the agent exceeded expectations across all tasks.

Clicking the link reopens the PDF on page 4 with the passage highlighted by Obsidian's native viewer.

Settings

• PDF folder: where imported PDFs are stored (default PDFs).
• Highlights folder: where highlight notes are created (default PDF Highlights).
• Open note after highlighting: show the highlights note beside the PDF after each save.

Install (manual)

1. npm install && npm run build
2. Copy main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css into <YourVault>/.obsidian/plugins/pdf-highlight-notes/
3. Enable PDF Highlight Notes under Settings → Community plugins.

Support

If this plugin adds value for you and you would like to help support continued development, please use the buttons below:

  

License

MIT