Pubcopy

Obsidian plugin that copies your notes as platform-optimized HTML to clipboard for pasting into Medium and Substack without formatting loss.

Install

From Obsidian (recommended)

Settings > Community plugins > Browse > Search "Pubcopy" > Install > Enable

Manual

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, styles.css from the latest release
2. Create folder: <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/pubcopy/
3. Copy the 3 files into that folder
4. Restart Obsidian
5. Settings > Community plugins > Enable "Pubcopy"

Usage

Three ways to trigger:

Method	Behavior
Command Palette (Cmd/Ctrl+P) > "Pubcopy"	Copies entire note
Right-click in editor > Pubcopy submenu	Copies selected text (or entire note if no selection)
Three-dot menu (top-right of note) > Pubcopy submenu	Copies entire note

Each method offers two options:

• Copy for Medium
• Copy for Substack

After copying, paste (Cmd/Ctrl+V) into the Medium or Substack editor.

What gets converted

56 Obsidian markdown elements are handled:

Element	Medium	Substack
Bold, italic, strikethrough, inline code	Yes	Yes
Highlights ==text==	Converted to bold	Converted to bold
Headers H1-H4	Yes	Yes
Headers H5-H6	Flattened to H4	Yes
Lists (ordered, unordered, nested)	Max 2 levels	Unlimited
Task lists - [ ]	Unicode checkboxes	Unicode checkboxes
Callouts > [!note]	Styled blockquote with label	Styled blockquote with label
Code blocks (with language)	<pre><code>	<pre>
Tables	HTML table	HTML table
Images (local)	Base64 embedded	Base64 embedded
Images (remote URL)	URL passthrough	URL passthrough
Image captions	Italic text below image	<figcaption>
Footnotes	Superscript + Notes section	Native
Math (LaTeX)	Rendered via KaTeX	Rendered via KaTeX
Mermaid diagrams	Stripped (not supported)	Stripped (not supported)
Wikilinks, tags, comments, frontmatter	Stripped	Stripped
Embeds ![[note]]	Resolved and inlined	Resolved and inlined

Settings

Settings > Community plugins > Pubcopy > Settings

Setting	Default	Description
Strip frontmatter	On	Remove YAML frontmatter
Strip tags	On	Remove #tag references
Strip wikilinks	On	Convert [[links]] to plain text
Mermaid format	SVG	SVG or PNG (for future use)
Image handling	Auto	Auto: base64 for local, URL for remote
Show notification	On	Display notice after copying

Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• npm

Setup

git clone https://github.com/canartuc/pubcopy.git
cd pubcopy
npm install

Build

# Development (watch mode, rebuilds on file change)
npm run dev

# Production build
npm run build

Test

# Run all tests
npm test

# Watch mode
npm run test:watch

Deploy to your vault

First run asks for your vault path and saves it to .deploy.json (gitignored):

npm run deploy
# > Obsidian vault path: /path/to/your/vault
# > Saved to .deploy.json
# > Deployed to .../plugins/pubcopy

Every subsequent run just builds and copies:

npm run deploy

After deploying, restart Obsidian or reload the plugin.

Project structure

src/
├── main.ts                    # Plugin entry, commands, menus
├── settings.ts                # Settings interface and tab
├── converter/
│   ├── index.ts               # Conversion pipeline orchestrator
│   ├── preprocessor.ts        # Strip frontmatter, tags, wikilinks, etc.
│   ├── html-converter.ts      # Markdown to HTML via remark/rehype
│   ├── image-handler.ts       # Local base64, remote URL, captions
│   ├── embed-resolver.ts      # Resolve ![[note]] embeds
│   ├── footnote-processor.ts  # Platform-specific footnotes
│   └── math-renderer.ts       # LaTeX via KaTeX
├── platforms/
│   ├── index.ts               # PlatformProfile interface
│   ├── medium.ts              # Medium-specific rules
│   └── substack.ts            # Substack-specific rules
├── clipboard/
│   └── writer.ts              # Clipboard API (text/html + text/plain)
└── utils/
    ├── errors.ts              # PubcopyError, WarningCollector
    └── notifications.ts       # Obsidian Notice wrappers

Release

Push a tag to trigger a GitHub Actions release:

# Update version in manifest.json and package.json first
git tag X.Y.Z
git push origin X.Y.Z

GitHub Actions runs tests, builds, and creates a release with main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css.

License

MIT