Keyboard Formatter

Formats keyboard text (kbd) in your Obsidian notes quickly and consistently.

This Obsidian plugin allows you to select text within your notes and, with a simple keyboard shortcut of your choosing , automatically format common keyboard keys and mouse buttons using HTML <kbd> tags. This provides a visually distinct and semantic way to represent user input instructions in your writing.

Features

• Effortless Formatting: Select text containing keyboard key names and press a keyboard shortcut of your choosing to format them. For examplectrl shift a will become ⌘ Ctrl ⇧ Shift A.
• Special Keys Recognition:
  • Common modifier keys: ⎈ Ctrl ⇧ Shift ⎇ Alt ⌘ Cmd Win etc.
  • Function keys: F1-F12
  • Command keys ⇥ Tab, ⌫ Delete ⏎ Enter
  • Directions like up and left become ↑ Up ← Left to mimic arrow keys
  • Numpad keys such as numpad . or numpad 5 will be formatted as Numpad • or Numpad 5
• Mouse Button Formatting: "lmb" as Left 🖱️, "rmb" as Right 🖱️, "mmb" as Middle 🖱️, and "wheel" or "scrollwheel" as Wheel 🖱️.
• Case-Insensitive Matching: Key names are recognized regardless of their capitalization (e.g., "Ctrl", "ctrl", and "CTRL" all become ⌘ Ctrl).
• Single Letter Capitalization: Capitalizes single-letter words (useful for individual key presses), like "a" becoming A.
• Light and Dark themes for everyone to enjoy!

How to Use

1. Install the plugin:

   • Open Obsidian.
   • Go to Settings -> Community plugins.
   • Make sure Safe mode is off.
   • Click Browse and search for "Keyboard Formatter".
   • Click Install and then Enable the plugin.
   • Alternatively, you can manually install it by copying the contents of the latest GitHub release from this repository into your Obsidian vault's plugins folder (<your_vault>/.obsidian/plugins/keyboard-formatter), then enable the plugin from your Obsidian's Community plugins list.
   • From the Community Plugins section, click the ➕ icon to set up your keyboard shortcut for this plugin, or click the ⚙️ icon to customize the text and background colors used for the KBD elements:
     

2. Format text:

   • Open a Markdown note in Obsidian.
   • Select the text you want to format (e.g., ctrl shift a).
   • Press the keyboard shortcut to run the tool
   • The selected text will be transformed into: <kbd>⌘ Ctrl</kbd> <kbd>⇧ Shift</kbd> <kbd>A</kbd> which looks like this: ⌘ Ctrl ⇧ Shift A.

Support My Work

If you find this plugin helpful and would like to support its development, you can buy me a coffee on Ko-fi! Your support is greatly appreciated.

Thank you for using Obsidian Keyboard Formatter! If you have any issues or suggestions, please feel free to open an issue on this repository.