Inline Handwriting

Write, edit, and keep handwriting directly inside an Obsidian note.

Inline Handwriting adds a pen-first drawing canvas to ordinary Markdown files. Drawings are stored as editable SVG files in your vault and embedded with standard Obsidian links, so your notes remain portable even when the plugin is disabled.

Features

• Insert a handwriting block at the current cursor position.
• Draw with a stylus, mouse, or trackpad in an inline editor.
• Use pen, highlighter, eraser, and text tools.
• Choose quick colours, pen size, background colour, paper pattern, and line spacing.
• Undo, redo, clear, autosave, and delete drawings.
• Collapse long drawings in a note and expand them again when needed.
• Insert references to existing handwriting SVG files.
• Works on desktop and mobile Obsidian.
• Keeps drawings locally in the vault; it has no OCR, API key, network request, analytics, or telemetry feature.

Install

From the Community plugins directory

After the plugin has been accepted, open Settings → Community plugins, search for Inline Handwriting, install it, and enable it.

Manually from GitHub

1. Download the three assets from the latest GitHub release: main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css.

2. Create this folder in your vault:

   <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/inline-handwriting-puria/
   

3. Copy the three downloaded files into that folder.

4. Reload Obsidian and enable Inline Handwriting under Settings → Community plugins.

Use

1. Open a Markdown note.
2. Run Insert handwriting block from the Command Palette, or select the pencil icon in the left ribbon.
3. Select Edit on the inserted drawing, or double-click the drawing, to open the canvas.
4. Draw, then use Save. The drawing is stored as an SVG under _inline_handwriting/ by default.

On devices that expose the S Pen side button to Obsidian, hold it to erase and release it to resume the selected pen. Holding the pen tip still on the page does not switch tools. In text mode, drag an existing text block to move it, or tap it to edit; use the selection tool's corner handle to resize it.

On Android, the plugin places a .nomedia file in the drawing folder so the system media scanner does not add these SVGs to the gallery. Existing gallery entries may take a media rescan to disappear.

You can also run Insert SVG reference to embed an existing SVG from the configured drawing folder.

Settings

The plugin lets you configure:

• Interface language
• SVG storage folder
• Default canvas width and height
• Canvas theme behaviour (automatic, light, or dark)
• Extra quick colours for the drawing toolbar

Data and privacy

All drawing data stays in your Obsidian vault as SVG files. This plugin does not send drawings, note content, usage data, or identifiers to an external service. It does not include OCR, AI, analytics, or telemetry.

Development

npm ci
npm run build
npm run lint

The release assets are generated in that directory:

• main.js
• manifest.json
• styles.css

Create a GitHub release whose tag exactly matches the version in manifest.json (for example, 1.0.0) and attach those three files. The included release workflow does this automatically when a matching version tag is pushed.

License and attribution

Licensed under the MIT License.

This project is independently maintained by Puria Kazemieh. It began from the MIT-licensed HandTranscriptMd project; the original copyright notice is retained in the license.