muTEXtum

mutextum (n.): That which has been changed by weaving — a document unwoven from its native form and rewoven as text. From Latin mutare ("to change") + texere ("to weave") + -tum (result).

A document converter for Obsidian. Converts Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OpenDocument, RTF, EPUB, CSV, and PDF documents into Markdown. Mutare et notare ("To change and note").

Security and Privacy

See SECURITY.

Features

• On-device conversion – All conversion happens locally; no external services, no API keys, no network requests, no system dependencies

• Broad format support – Word (.doc, .docx), PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx), Excel (.xlsx), OpenDocument (.odt, .ods, .odp), RTF (.rtf), EPUB (.epub), CSV (.csv), and PDF (.pdf)

• Right-click conversion – Convert any supported file already in your vault via the file context menu (right-click on desktop, long-press on mobile); the menu item appears only for supported formats[^1]

• Multi-note mode – Long documents are split into one note per top-level (#) heading, inside a subfolder named after the source file, with an index note listing all chapters; if no top-level headings are found, the document is written as a single note instead

• Link cleanup – Internal EPUB anchor links are removed[^2]; adjacent bold and italic spans left dangling by link removal are merged back into continuous formatting

• Conflict handling – If a destination note or folder already exists, a dialog asks whether to overwrite, rename, or skip

• Optional frontmatter – Add YAML frontmatter to each generated note with source filename, conversion timestamp, and plugin version

• Desktop and mobile support

Settings

• Destination folder – Where converted notes are written (default: Imports)
• Include frontmatter – Write YAML frontmatter in every generated note

Known Limitations

• PDFs with image-only pages are not supported; these require optical character recognition; text-based PDFs convert normally
• Encrypted documents cannot be converted
• Multi-note splitting is based on top-level (#) headings only; documents without any H1 headings are written as a single note, regardless of length
• Output quality depends on the source. Conversion preserves what the original document contains; poorly formatted sources, broken hyperlinks, or inconsistent styling in the original will be reflected in the converted Markdown (the converter cannot repair what was never structured correctly)

Obsidian Sync

The mu/TEX/tum plugin bundles a ~6.5 MB WebAssembly conversion engine, which makes main.js exceed Obsidian Sync's 5 MB per-file limit. Users on the Sync Standard plan will not be able to sync this plugin across devices via Obsidian Sync.

mu/TEX/tum still installs and updates normally through Settings → Community Plugins, and manual installation (or BRAT) works as well. Only cross-device syncing via Obsidian Sync is affected.

Performance

Conversion is fast for typical documents, but very large files may take a moment. The source file remains untouched throughout.

Installation & Updating

1. In your vault's .obsidian/plugins/ directory, make a directory (folder) called mutextum, if you don't already have one
2. Download main.js, styles.css and manifest.json and put them in that directory (over-writing to update)
3. If not already enabled, enable mu/TEX/tum in Obsidian Settings → Community plugins
4. In Settings → Files and links, enable Detect all file extensions so supported documents appear in the File Explorer and can be right-clicked[^1]

Feedback, etc.

Feel free to get in touch and post any issues and/or suggestions

My other Obsidian plugins:

• con[VER]sum: GitHub repo, Obsidian Community
• in(REF)ens: GitHub repo, Obsidian Community
• tra.VER:ture: GitHub repo, Obsidian Community

[^1]: Obsidian only shows supported file types in the File Explorer by default. Enable Detect all file extensions in Settings → Files and links to make documents like .docx, .epub, and .pdf visible and right-clickable.

[^2]: jw.org links are stripped automatically, so tra.VER:ture can handle scripture linking