Using Xournal++ together with Obsidian

2025-01-05

I have already talked quite a bit about Obsidian being my note-taking software of choice for university and still absolutely stand by it. However, I'm also actively experimenting with it and try to optimize it resulting in some changes of my setup over time. In this one, I want to introduce you to using Xournal++ together with Obsidian for an even better handwriting experience...

First and foremost, we should talk about why I even feel the need to change something about my current solution of using the popular Excalidraw plugin. Honestly, it mostly comes down to the poor performance I and everyone else I know experience while using it in everyday situations. These issues primarily occur when working with lots of images, which you unfortunately have to do quite often as the PDF import is build around converting every page to an image (which also takes ages). Far worse than these import times is the laggy performance while drawing however, which can make it borderline unusable in a document with many images, and the abysmally slow preview generation when embedding such a file into a note. Some minor things like the missing ability to properly export a drawing as a PDF file are just the cherry on top of the cake and unfortunately make for a not very satisfying user experience overall.

Thus, I was especially happy to find a well-working Xournal++ plugin for Obsidian that allows me to pretty seamlessly integrate my favourite handwriting application on Linux into my favourite note-taking software. What it does is basically enabling Obsidian to show Xournal++ files in the tree view, automatically convert them to PDF documents that can be easily integrated into your notes as well as to provide several easy options to open a drawing in Xournal++ for editing. However, this approach is a bit more involved since it requires two programs working together, so here's how to properly set everything up:

Install the Xournal++ plugin
If Obsidian is installed via Flatpak, allow it the permission to execute Xournal++:
- Grant Obsidian access to the D-Bus via Flatseal
- Under the Xournal++ installation path setting enter flatpak-spawn --host xournalpp , if Xournal++ is installed from your distributions repositories, or flatpak-spawn --host flatpak run com.github.xournalpp.xournalpp , if Xournal++ is also installed via Flatpak
- For further guidance, see https://github.com/jonjampen/obsidian-xournalpp/blob/master/docs/path.md
Turn on the Auto export Xournal++ files setting for a better experience, if your computer is relatively fast (manual updates are still possible)
Customize the used template by creating a regular .xopp file to your liking and placing its relative path in the Xournal++ template path setting (I simply place mine in the vault's root and hide it by putting a dot at the filename start, e.g. .xournalpp-template.xopp )
Finally, consider setting Xournal++ as your default app to open PDFs with in Obsidian

The workflow of using it for everyday drawings and PDF annotations then looks like this:

Either create a new drawing from one of the many buttons or via the command pallet in Obsidian, edit it in Xournal++ and then embed the generated PDF into your notes - you can always further edit it in Xournal++ and it will be automatically updated
Or select a PDF file you want to annotate in the tree view, click Open in default app , annotate it in the Xournal++ window that opened and save it with a different name (I usually append annotated to the existing name) - it should now appear in Obsidian just like any other Xournal++ file and you can further edit it as usual

With that said, I hope you found this one interesting and maybe even useful in case you also use Obsidian for note-taking. As always, feel free to share thoughts and experiences in the comments down below and have a lovely day...

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