PDF Tags

pending

by Matilde Afonso

Tag your PDFs and find them in graph view, search and the tag pane.

Updated 20d agoMITDiscovered via Obsidian Unofficial Plugins
View on GitHub

PDF Tags

Tag your PDF files in Obsidian and find them in graph view, search, and the tag pane.

The problem

PDFs have no frontmatter, so Obsidian has no way to index tags for them. PDF Tags solves this by creating a hidden companion Markdown file for each tagged PDF. Obsidian indexes the companion file, so your PDF tags show up everywhere tags are expected — graph view, search, the tag pane, and tag: queries.

Features

  • Tag button injected directly into the PDF viewer toolbar
  • Add and remove tags from a popover — with autocomplete from your existing vault tags
  • Tags appear in graph view, search results, and the tag pane
  • Companion files stay in sync when PDFs are renamed or deleted
  • Companion folder is hidden from the file explorer

Usage

  1. Open any PDF in Obsidian
  2. Click the tag icon in the PDF toolbar (top right)
  3. Type a tag name and press Enter, or click a suggestion from your existing vault tags
  4. To remove a tag, click the × on the tag chip

How it works

When you tag a PDF, the plugin creates a small Markdown file in a _pdf-tags/ folder inside your vault. That file contains the tags as frontmatter and a backlink to the PDF. Obsidian's metadata cache picks up the tags from this file and treats them like any other tags in your vault.

The _pdf-tags/ folder is hidden from the file explorer via CSS injection. It is not excluded from Obsidian's index, so tags remain discoverable everywhere.

Settings

SettingDefaultDescription
Companion folder_pdf-tagsVault-relative folder where companion files are stored

Installation

Community plugins (recommended)

  1. Open Obsidian Settings → Community plugins
  2. Search for PDF Tags
  3. Install and enable

Manual

  1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release
  2. Copy them to <your vault>/.obsidian/plugins/obsidian-pdf-tags/
  3. Enable the plugin in Obsidian Settings → Community plugins

For plugin developers

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