Text Case and Cleanup

Change the case of the text you have selected, and clean up prose that came out of a PDF, a scan or a web page.

Everything runs on the text in front of you. There is no network access, no telemetry, and nothing runs on its own: a command only ever touches the selection you give it, and each one is a single undo step. The one optional exception is Tidy on paste, which is off until you turn it on.

Installing

In Obsidian, open Settings -> Community plugins -> Browse, search for Text Case and Cleanup, then install and enable it.

To install it by hand instead:

1. Download main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Put the three files in <your vault>/.obsidian/plugins/text-format/.
3. Reload Obsidian and turn the plugin on under Settings -> Community plugins.

It needs Obsidian 1.0.0 or newer, and works on desktop and mobile alike.

Commands

Each command works on every selection you have. With no selection it works on the current line, and on a blank line it does nothing.

Case

Command	the lord of the rings becomes
Uppercase	THE LORD OF THE RINGS
Lowercase	the lord of the rings
Title case	The Lord of the Rings
Sentence case	The lord of the rings
Capitalize each word	The Lord Of The Rings
Capitalize sentences, leaving the rest	The lord of the rings
Cycle case	lowercase, then Title Case, then UPPERCASE, then round again

Names: variables, file names, tags, anchors

Command	user account ID becomes
camelCase	userAccountId
PascalCase	UserAccountId
snake_case	user_account_id
CONSTANT_CASE	USER_ACCOUNT_ID
kebab-case	user-account-id
dot.case	user.account.id
Train-Case	User-Account-Id
Pascal_Snake_Case	User_Account_Id
path/case	user/account/id
Capital Case	User Account Id
no case	user account id
Slug (lowercase, no accents, hyphens)	user-account-id, and Café Über Straße becomes cafe-uber-strasse

They read each other as well as prose: userAccountId, user_account_id and USER-ACCOUNT-ID all give the same words, XMLHttpRequest splits as xml_http_request, and don't stays one word. Each line converts on its own and keeps its bullet, task box or heading hashes, so a list of titles becomes a list of slugs, not one long identifier. Links, URLs, inline code and maths are left in place.

One hotkey for all of them

Change case… lists every case with a preview of what your selection would become. Type a few letters to filter (snake, kebab), then Enter.

Sentence case lowers everything first and then raises the opening word of each sentence. Capitalize sentences only raises the opening word, so proper nouns you already typed survive.

Cleanup

Command	What it does
Join wrapped lines	Merges a hard-wrapped paragraph back into one line, rejoining any word split across the break
Rejoin words split across lines	Undoes the hyphenation without touching the line breaks
Remove invisible characters	Strips soft hyphens, zero-width marks and byte order marks, and turns non-breaking and exotic spaces into ordinary ones
Replace ligatures	Turns the single-character ligatures a PDF copy leaves behind (fi, fl, ff, ffi, ffl, ſt, st) into plain letters, so file becomes file and search finds it. The Dutch IJ and ij are real letters and stay. Code and display maths are left alone
Straighten quotes and dashes	Turns curly quotes and primes into straight ones, dashes into hyphens (— into --) and … into three dots, for text headed into code, a terminal or a config file. Guillemets are left alone
Links to plain text	Replaces every link with the text it displays

Tidy note

One command, Tidy note, runs the cleanups you pick in the settings over the selection, or the whole note when nothing is selected. A small window first says how many lines each step would change (and a notice says "Nothing to tidy" when it would change none); confirming applies everything as one undo step.

Steps: remove invisible characters, replace ligatures, join wrapped lines, collapse multiple spaces, remove trailing whitespace, remove extra blank lines. All but joining wrapped lines are on by default.

It leaves fenced code, inline code, display maths, front matter and tables alone, never touches indentation, list markers or blockquote depth, and keeps Markdown hard line breaks (two trailing spaces before another line of text).

Each of three steps is also a command of its own: Remove trailing whitespace, Collapse multiple spaces (indentation stays) and Remove extra blank lines (keep one).

Tidy on paste (off by default) runs the same steps on plain text you paste. It does nothing inside code or front matter, leaves pastes that carry formatting (HTML, files) to Obsidian, never changes the clipboard, steps aside if another plugin already handled the paste, and is one undo step.

Your own find-and-replace

For the fix you make again and again, keep it as a command. In the settings, under Saved replacements, add a replacement with a name, the text to find, the text to put in its place, and two options: Regular expression and Match case. Each one becomes its own command, Replace: , which you can give a hotkey, and is also listed in Run a saved replacement…. Adding, renaming or deleting one takes effect at once, without a reload.

A replacement works on the selection, or on the whole note when nothing is selected. It is one undo step, and a notice says how many replacements it made. Nothing is saved by default.

Example: a replacement named Dates to ISO, with Regular expression on, that finds (\d{2})/(\d{2})/(\d{4}) and replaces it with $3-$2-$1, turns 31/12/2026 into 2026-12-31.

• Without Regular expression, the find and replace text are taken exactly as typed, so . and $ mean themselves.
• With it, $1, $2... are the groups of the match, $& is the whole match, and \n in the replace text is a line break. An empty replace text deletes the matches.
• Match case is off by default, so cat also finds Cat.
• A regular expression that is not valid shows an error line under it in the settings, and its command only shows a notice; it never changes the note.
• Matches never span two lines. A selection that starts or ends inside code is left alone.

Lines

Command	What it does
Sort lines A to Z	Sorts naturally (item 2 before item 10), ignoring case and accents. A list item moves with the lines indented under it, items are compared by their text rather than the bullet or checkbox, and an ordered list is renumbered
Sort lines Z to A	The same, in reverse
Remove duplicate lines	Keeps the first of each repeated line
Remove blank lines	Removes every empty line
Remove extra blank lines (keep one)	Leaves at most one empty line between paragraphs

These work on every line the selection touches, or on the whole note when nothing is selected. The front matter is never included, lines inside code blocks are never removed, and one undo puts everything back.

What these commands will not touch

• Fenced code blocks and inline code are copied through untouched, as is inline maths. Saved replacements skip code and front matter too.
• URLs, wikilinks, autolinks and e-mail addresses keep their case, because lowering a URL can break it.
• A line's markdown prefix — quote markers, bullets, ordered numbers, task checkboxes, heading hashes — is never rewritten. - [x] buy milk becomes - [x] Buy milk, never - [X] Buy Milk.
• Abbreviations and decimals (e.g., U.S.A., 3.14) do not end a sentence and keep their own capitals.

Settings

Setting	Default	What it is for
Language rules	System default	Turkish and Azerbaijani map the dotted and dotless i differently from every other language; Lithuanian keeps the dot over an accented lowercase i
Keep acronyms as they are	On	Leaves acronyms such as NASA and PDF, and mixed-case names such as iPhone, macOS and GitHub, alone. It is ignored when the whole selection is already uppercase, since then every word looks like an acronym
Words title case keeps lowercase	A practical list	No two style guides agree here, so the list is yours to edit. The first and last word of a title are always capitalized whatever the list says
Drop the hyphen when joining lines	On	A PDF breaks a word as trans- and lation. Turn this off for text where a real compound such as well-known is likelier than a broken word
With no selection, change case of	Whole line	Or only the word at the caret
Tidy steps	All on except Join wrapped lines	Which steps Tidy note and Tidy on paste run
Keep hard line breaks	On	Trailing whitespace removal keeps two trailing spaces before a line of text
Confirm before tidying	On	Shows the per-step counts before applying
Tidy on paste	Off	Runs the Tidy steps on plain text you paste
Saved replacements	None	Your own find-and-replace commands, described above
Keep image alt text	On	Leaves the description behind when an image becomes plain text

Scope

This is a rebuild of the uncontested half of Text Format, whose last release was in July 2024. It deliberately leaves out:

• Automatic format-on-save. Whitespace cleanup is a command, and pasting can be tidied only if you opt in; nothing rewrites your notes unasked.
• The original's grab bag — callouts, Anki, LaTeX conversion, table to list, heading level shifting, API requests. Those are separate tools wearing one name.

Bugs it does not reproduce

These are open issues on the original. They are fixed here by design, and each one has a test naming it.

Issue	Symptom there
#33	don't became Don'T, because the apostrophe started a new word
#103	Removing a wikilink failed when it contained a #
#110	Uppercasing an empty line froze the app
#112	Capitalizing a sentence rewrote the [x] of a task
#114	Title case mangled Vietnamese
#115	Removing a link left fragments when it held brackets or parentheses
#118	Turkish i did not become İ
#120	No way to unwrap a hard-wrapped paragraph
#121	Title case lowered the first word when it was on the ignore list

Building and testing

npm install
npm test     # the logic, under plain Node
npm run build

The logic lives in src/case.ts and src/cleanup.ts and imports nothing from Obsidian, so it runs and is tested under plain Node. main.ts is the only file that talks to the editor, and it edits by range inside one editor.transaction, so a command is one undo step and never replaces the document.

More plugins by Siulved54

Plugin	What it does	Source
Shared Blocks	Write a block of text once and reuse it in any note. Edit the source and every reference re-renders live.	shared-blocks
Typography as You Type	Curly quotes, dashes and ellipses as you type, kept out of code and maths, with Backspace to take one back.	smart-typography-plugin
Section Numbering	Number headings as an outline (1, 1.1, 1.2) and keep every link to them working when they renumber.	section-numbering
Spreadsheet to Table	Paste cells from Excel or Google Sheets as a Markdown table with a real header, insert CSV files, and copy tables back out.	spreadsheet-to-table
Hybrid Line Numbers	Relative and hybrid line numbers for Vim-style jumps, where a folded section counts as one line.	hybrid-line-numbers
List Item Callouts	Colour a single list item as a callout by starting it with a character such as &, ! or ?.	list-item-callouts
Folder Counts	See how many notes or files each folder holds, right in the file explorer, with a vault total and folder exclusions.	folder-counts
Note Reading Time	Reading time of the current note or your selection in the status bar, optionally saved to a property.	note-reading-time
Task Rollover	Roll unfinished tasks from your last daily note into today's when it is created, with a real undo.	task-rollover
Zoom Into Section	Zoom into a heading or list item to see only it and its contents, with a breadcrumb bar to climb back out.	zoom-into-section
Link Title on Paste	Paste a web address and get a Markdown link with the page's title, fetched in the background and undone in one step.	link-title-on-paste
Update Radar	Checks your installed community plugins for updates in the background, shows what changed, and flags the ones that look abandoned.	community-update-checker
Dataview to Bases	Convert Dataview queries into Bases blocks, and see which queries in your vault can be converted.	dataview-to-bases
Line Editing Commands	Duplicate, join, sort and reverse lines, insert blank lines and jump to a line number, with multi-cursor support.	line-editing-commands
Note Mover Rules	Move notes into folders by ordered rules on tags, properties, titles and paths, with a preview before any bulk move.	note-mover-rules
Tab History	Keeps each tab's back and forward history across restarts, and adds commands to move, maximize and close tabs.	tab-history
URL Cards	Shows web addresses as cards with title, description and image, and reads existing cardlink blocks.	url-cards
Vim Config	Loads a vimrc-style file from your vault so your key mappings and editor commands are ready when vim mode starts.	vim-config
Task Archive	Moves completed tasks, with their sub-items, into an archive section or note.	task-archive

All of them are in the community directory: Settings -> Community plugins -> Browse, then search for the name.

Licence

MIT, see LICENSE.