To bring a PDF or Word document into Obsidian as a real note, convert it to Markdown and save the result in a folder inside your vault. Obsidian can open a PDF as it is, but the PDF stays an attachment: you read it in a viewer, and vault search does not look inside it.

Obsidian keeps notes as Markdown files in an ordinary folder on your computer, called a vault. A converted document is one more Markdown file in that folder, so Obsidian treats it like a note you wrote yourself.

An open laptop with a blurred screen beside an open lined notebook, a lilac pencil and dried lavender on a dark stone desk.
A document becomes a note next to the ones you already keep.

What Obsidian does with PDF, Word and EPUB files

Obsidian's list of accepted file formats covers Markdown, images, audio, video and PDF, plus its own canvas and base files. Word documents and ebooks are not on it.

FileWhat Obsidian does with it
PDFOpens it in a built-in viewer. You can search inside an open PDF, copy a quote with a link to the passage, and embed the file in a note.
DOCXDoes not open it. With the Show all file types setting turned on, the file appears in the file explorer and you can link to it.
EPUBDoes not open it. Like a DOCX file, it can only be listed and linked to.

Search is the main difference. Obsidian's Search help page says it looks only in the contents of notes and canvases, so a sentence inside a PDF will not appear in vault search results. Annotations and highlights are not supported in the PDF viewer either, according to Obsidian's help on PDFs.

Once a document is a Markdown note, its text appears in search, and you can edit it, link to its headings and add properties as in any other note.

Why the Importer plugin does not cover documents

Importer is the official plugin from the Obsidian team for moving notes out of other apps. As of October 2026, it imports from Notion, Evernote, Apple Notes, Microsoft OneNote, Google Keep, Bear, Roam Research, Logseq and a few other apps, plus HTML, CSV, Markdown and Textbundle files.

Word, PDF and EPUB are not on the list of supported formats. For these files, conversion is a separate step that happens before Obsidian sees them.

Convert documents into a folder in your vault

MD Factory saves each Markdown file next to its original. The simplest layout is a folder inside the vault for the documents you want as notes:

My vault/
  Imports/
    Annual report.pdf
    Annual report.md
    Annual report_images/
    Team handbook.docx
    Team handbook.md
    Team handbook_images/
  1. Create a folder in your vault, for example Imports, and copy the documents into it.
  2. Open MD Factory and select Add folder, or drag the folder onto its window. Conversion starts at once.
  3. Watch the status of each file: Completed, Needs review or Failed. Open the details of any file that needs review.
  4. Switch to Obsidian. The new notes are already in the file explorer, because Obsidian picks up files added from outside.

Add only the import folder, not the whole vault. MD Factory converts every supported file in a folder and its subfolders, so adding the vault would also create notes from the PDFs you keep there as attachments.

If you prefer to keep originals outside the vault, convert them where they are. Then move each Markdown file together with its images folder into the vault. If MD Factory cannot write to a document's folder, it asks where to save the results.

MD Factory converts on your PC and does not upload the documents. Each format has its own details to check, and separate guides cover them:

Pictures from the document are saved as PNG files in a folder named after the note, such as Team handbook_images. The note links to them with a standard Markdown image link and a path relative to the note:

![](Team%20handbook_images/image-5c2e9f0a4b7d13e86a21.png)

Spaces in the path are written as %20. Obsidian's help asks for this encoding in Markdown-style links, and Obsidian reads Markdown links alongside its own wikilinks. Links you add later can stay in the wikilink format.

Open a converted note and scroll to a picture to check that it shows. Keep each note and its images folder side by side. If you move only the note in Windows File Explorer, its image links will point to a folder that is no longer next to it.

Links inside a converted book, such as footnote references, point to places in the same note. If you rely on them, click a few in Obsidian to check where they lead.

Keep the originals and re-convert after changes

MD Factory does not change the source document, so the PDF or DOCX stays next to its note. Keep it: a table, chart or scanned page is easier to check against the original. To show the original PDF inside the note, embed it with a page number, as described in Obsidian's help on embedding files:

![[Annual report.pdf#page=3]]

When a document changes, add it to MD Factory again. If the document is still in the list from an earlier run, select Clear first. If the earlier note is unchanged, the new result replaces it. If you edited the note, MD Factory keeps your version and saves the new result under a numbered name, such as Annual report (2).md. On drives formatted as FAT32 or exFAT, new results always get a numbered name.

To keep re-conversion simple, write your own comments in a separate note that links to the converted one. The converted note stays a clean copy of the document, and your comments survive the next conversion.

Add properties if your vault uses them

MD Factory does not add front matter. If your vault relies on properties, add them yourself: type three hyphens on the first line of the note, or run the Add file property command (Ctrl+;).

---
source: "[[Annual report.pdf]]"
tags:
  - imported
---

Internal links in properties go in quotes, as in the example. Adding properties is an edit, so the next conversion of that document will be saved under a numbered name.