<h1 id="templater-plugin-for-research-notes"><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" href="#templater-plugin-for-research-notes"><span class="icon icon-link"></span></a>Templater Plugin for Research Notes</h1>
<h3 id="lets-begin"><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" href="#lets-begin"><span class="icon icon-link"></span></a>Let's Begin</h3>
<p>Let's discuss the plugin Templater and how I use it to create templates for my research notes. The plugin is one of the most popular in the Obsidian environment and provides flexibility for creating research notes. You need to download the plugin via the community plugins tab (which I have already done for you), but I will give a step-by-step guide for installing the plugin below anyway.</p>
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<p>Click on the Gear icon in the lower left sidebar (Fig. 1).</p>
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<p>Click on Community plugins, then Browse. You may first be prompted to initiate the community plugins by turning on Restricted mode (Fig. 2).</p>
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<p>In the search bar, type “Templater” and the plugin will appear (Fig. 3). When installing any plugin, check when it was updated. If not updated frequently, some plugins may no longer be compatible with updated versions of Obsidian.</p>
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<p>Click install and then click enable (Fig. 4).</p>
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<p>Voila, you now have Templater (Fig. 5).</p>
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</ol>
<p>From this point, you can create customized templates for your notes and hotkeys (e.g., command + n) to open or insert a template into a note (I have also made these templates for you. I'm such a nice professor.). What I enjoy about Templater is its ease of use. Setting up the plugin after the initial install is not difficult, and there are many tutorials and videos online on how to customize the plugin for your needs. I have set up different templates depending on the notes you need to create. There are four different templates for you to use during this course: Process Notes, Weekly Journal, Literature Notes, and Atomic Notes.</p>
<p>For example, the Atomic Note template is inserted each time I create a new note (Fig. 6). When the note is first created, it is labelled as ‘untitled.' I then change this to the title or identifier I want the note to have. The note includes twelve unique properties. Metadata in the YAML section (which we discuss later in the course). For example, ‘Status’ indicates if the note is completed, incomplete or inprogress; ‘Priority’ identifies if the note is of High, Medium, or Low priority; ‘Project’ tells me what specific project(s) the note may be associated with, respectively (Fig. 7). In the note's body, I have sections for Tags, Key Ideas, Citations, and Related Links. I use the hotkey: control (^) + A, which opens a new note with the Atomic Note template already inserted into the note. Thus, I do not need to type everything out each time I create a note. Templater does all of this for me. Neat, eh!</p>
<p>Here is a list of hotkeys I have set up for you to use. Each time you use a hotkey, Obsidian will create a new note named <code>untitled</code>, and it will <em>typically</em> be at the bottom of your folder list. You need to click and drag the file to the appropriate folder. You can have the new file populate into the folder you want, but that is a task for another day unless you are so inclined to give it a try.</p>
<h3 id="hotkeys"><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" href="#hotkeys"><span class="icon icon-link"></span></a>Hotkeys</h3>
<p>The command <code>control</code>  <code>(^)</code> should be the same for Mac and PC. If you have issues, please let me know.</p>
<div><blockquote class="callout" style="border-left-color:undefined;">
<div class="callout-title important" style="background-color: undefined1a;"><span style="color:undefined" class="callout-icon"></span><strong><p>HotKeys for Templater</p></strong></div>
<div class="callout-content" style=""><ol>
<li>Atomic Note: control (^) + A</li>
<li>Literature Note: control (^) + L</li>
<li>Process Note: control (^) + P</li>
<li>Weekly Journal: control (^) + J</li>
</ol></div>
</blockquote></div>
<h3 id="figures"><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" href="#figures"><span class="icon icon-link"></span></a>Figures.</h3>
<p><strong>Fig. 1</strong> Click on Gear to Open Settings.<br>
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Templater%20Setup/Step%201.png" priority="1"></p>
<p><strong>Fig. 2</strong> Click on Community Plugins in the left sidebar, then click on browse.<br>
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Templater%20Setup/Step%202.png"></p>
<p><strong>Fig. 3</strong> Type in Templater in the search bar, and you will see the plugin appear. Click on it.<br>
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Templater%20Setup/Step%203.png"></p>
<p><strong>Fig. 4</strong> Click install. <strong>Note: I have already installed and enabled the plugin for you.</strong><br>
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Templater%20Setup/Step%204.png"></p>
<p><strong>Fig. 5</strong> The plugin should appear under community plugins<br>
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Templater%20Setup/Step%205.png"></p>
<p><strong>Fig. 6</strong> This is a template example which includes properties/YAML, citation, Key Ideas, and related notes fields.<br>
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Vault%20Setup/ZettleTemplate1.png"></p>
<p><strong>Fig. 7</strong> Another Atomic Note example. (It says Zettel Note because that is how I name them in my personal vault.)<br>
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Vault%20Setup/Zettel%20Template.png"></p>
<p><strong>Fig. 8</strong> Templater Setup and Hot Keys Video <a href="/2%20Templater%20and%20Hotkeys%20Video%20Transcript" title="2 Templater and Hotkeys Video Transcript">2 Templater and Hotkeys Video Transcript</a></p>
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Welcome

1. Course Description

2. Learning Outcomes

3. Course Schedule

4. Evaluation

5. Course Communications

6. Common Regulations

6. Contact the Professor

how the course tech is built; how the course came to be

7. Colophon

8. Reuse

Orientation and Digital Setup

Week 1

Personal Knowledge Management and Linked Thinking

Week 2

Thinking about the “Craft” of Digital History

Week 3

Crusading into the Digital Age of LLMs

Week 4

Consolidation & Check-In Week

Week 5

Digital Excavation

Week 6

Defining Data, 'Dark' Data, & Identifiers

Week 7

Fall Break

Week 8

Seeing the Past?

Week 9

Week 10

Authority and Positionality in Your Digital Research

Week 11

Publicly Crafting a Historical Argument

Week 12

Open-Access Notebook Workshop

Week 13

Exit Ticket

Week 14

1 Setting up your vault

2 Create your first note

3 Templater Plugiin

4 What Goes into a Note?

5 Properties

Hypothesis

The Simplest Online Memex Worfklow

How To Read An Academic Article

FAQ for Common Tech Issues

Where to Find help

Text Formatting

Introduction to your vault

index note

Atomic Note

Literature Note

Process Note

Weekly Journal

Topic Proposal

Weekly Work & Tasks

Consolidation Reflection

Open Access Notebook/Memex

Benchmarking Your Memex

Exit Ticket/Final Project

1 Welcome to Crafting Digital History Transcript

2 Obsidian User Interface (UI) Guide

3 Templater and Hotkeys Setup

4 How to use PDF++

5 Canvas Core Plugin Introductory Tutorial

6 Hypothes.is and Annotating the Web

7 Omnisearch Plugin for Obsidian

8 How to Use Process Notes for Digital Research Projects in Obsidian

9 Properties, Identifiers and Data Management with Obsidian Core Plugin Bases

1 Welcome to Crafting Digital History

2 Some Logistical Updates

3 Welcome to Week Two

4 What is Digital History?

5 Crusading into the Digital Age of LLMs

6 Week Four Exercise Example

7 Using Obsidian for Digital History Research and Note-Making

8 Reflection Feedback Update and Hypothes.is

9 Week Five Update

10 Consolidation Reflection Submission

11 Module Two Wrangling and Critiquing

12 Week 7 Update

13 Week 9 Welcome Back

14 Consolidation Week Number 2

1. Course Overview

Module 1 Contextualizing

Module 2 Wrangling & Critiquing

Module 3 Arguing & Communicating

2. Schedule

01  memex help

8. Course Files

3. Tutorials

4. Assessment

5. VideoTutorials

Crafting Digital History

News