Yo i love obsidian.

Been using it for 10 months now (4375 notes in graph view at the end), wish i knew about it back in 2020 would've saved so much hassle.

genuinely one of the best pieces of software out there, it makes learning so much smoother.

I OCR my handwritten notes to obsidian for example, and its impressive how i managed to get maths perfect in markdown/mathjax.

Now i never have to start from 0 again, ever, I can just search/link to my old notes it'll always be here waiting to be stumbled upon again.

Thank you kepano for making this software, this is insane

Edit - 18 Aug 2026 - of course the people want to know the method how i OCR and how all of this is this is even possible. Here it is:

Not sponsored ts is just that fluid.

Workflow

Notebook LM to polish the notes.
a handwriting app called notein (think it's android only) which supports OCR export (not the best alone but helps notebook lm a lot).
Quickdraft quickly paste OCR note into a syncthing directory, (not exactly necessary, but what works for me)
I created a dataviewjs script for plain-text function graphs,
- i could send the script if you want, personally i didn't want to install another plugin but if you want the plugin there is a desmos plugin by nigecat.

OCR Process

Handwriting Paid (£12) OCR

Notein a free with one time premium note taking app on android, i tested it out for free version but its limited.

Its the only note taking app i found with built-in OCR, which you need premium for, normally i dont pay for premium but its a one time fee of £12 with infinite AI OCR, compared to flexcil for £24, which i do not recall having this feature, this is a steal, and completely worth it.

Free OCR if you don't want to pay

If you do not want to pay, to OCR i used to use olmOCR, which is much more powerful for one time thing than routine OCR, but generates it in html not MD.

You'll then need to convert html to markdown and polish it the way you want to, but there is a 10 page limit and the process is much longer for me thats why i switched to notein.

Personally this is better for converting a bunch of handwritten notes images (i mean on paper not epaper/pdf) to markdown.

Notebook LM OCR Cleanup

Notebook LM is what i use to make the markdown note faithful to the handwritten pdf. I explained below the process.

I had to write a string of prompts in a text file and added it to the sources (since they became long and specific) as well as add a custom chat so it remembers before every response, for how it should handle returning my notes in proper format.

Trial and error to get it to be perfect, I can send the prompts if anyone wants them.

Separately, i also give my markdown notes back to notebook lm in the sources and guided it to making obsidian wikilinks between related material through some additional prompts.

+1: I give nblm latex formula pdf (the simple one from this comment) as a source too, to improve its latex knowledge.

Handwriting to Markdown Process

Make my notes on notein
Click "AI OCR"
Copy Paste notes to quickdraft, then send to syncthing directory
Export PDF pages
On PC, take both OCR.md note and PDF note to notebook LM
Notebook LM rewrites the notes in "faithful" format to the handwriting using the OCR.md to help it, it gives feedback and mark the work
Paste it in obsidian, can review/search/link-to it and read feedback in the future when needed.

I've been using this particular system for 4 months improving it along the way, its just too good i can't gatekeep it that'll be evil lol.

TL;DR:

Hand write in Notein
→ Notein OCR
→ export handwritten pages as PDF
→ give both the PDF + rough OCR to NotebookLM
→ NotebookLM reconstructs/polishes it into Markdown/MathJax
→ paste into Obsidian.

nvm i'll just add it now; the key files and prompts:

Note for math-graph.js, don't paste the whole js file in a note, save the js file else where and link to it in a code block, explained here (2).

u/imback_TL