PDF Highlight Notes

An Obsidian plugin to import, read, and highlight PDFs inside your vault.

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PDFs open in Obsidian's built-in viewer. Select a passage and a small floating toolbar appears with two independent actions:

• Highlight: paints a permanent marker highlight into the PDF file itself, like a real highlighter on paper. The ink stays across restarts and is visible in any PDF reader (Preview, Acrobat, …). Colors: yellow (default), green, pink, or blue.
• Save quote: saves the passage as a quote in a companion highlights note, with a deep link that reopens the PDF at that exact passage. The PDF file is not modified. Your quotes are ordinary Markdown: searchable, linkable, and taggable.

Use either one, or both. They don't affect each other.

Commands

• Import PDF files into vault: file picker; copies PDFs into your vault (folder configurable) and opens the first one. Also available as a ribbon button.
• Save PDF selection as highlight: with text selected in an open PDF, saves it as a > [!quote] callout in PDF Highlights/<name> (highlights).md, linked back to the page and selection. Bind this to a hotkey for one-press highlighting. Also available as a ribbon button.
• Open highlights note for this PDF: opens the companion note beside the PDF.

Example highlight

> [!quote] [[PDFs/agent_smith.pdf#page=4&selection=12,0,15,42|p. 4]]
> The measured capability of the agent exceeded expectations across all tasks.

Clicking the link reopens the PDF on page 4 with the passage highlighted by Obsidian's native viewer.

Settings

• PDF folder: where imported PDFs are stored (default PDFs).
• Highlights folder: where highlight notes are created (default PDF Highlights).
• Open note after highlighting: show the highlights note beside the PDF after each save.

Install (manual)

1. npm install && npm run build
2. Copy main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css into <YourVault>/.obsidian/plugins/pdf-highlight-notes/
3. Enable PDF Highlight Notes under Settings → Community plugins.

Support

If this plugin adds value for you and you would like to help support continued development, please use the buttons below:

License

MIT