Obsidian Table Exporter

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Export rendered Markdown tables and Bases views in Obsidian to PNG, CSV, Excel (.xlsx), and PDF.

What's new in 0.3 — Bases Cards and List views now export as one continuous long PNG or PDF via scroll-stitching. A 50-card Cards Base exports as all 50 cards (was: visible-area only). The pipeline scroll-walks the virtualized container, captures each viewport, and stitches chunks with geometry + pixel overlap detection. Progress notice during walk; capture aborts when scroll-position drift is detected; truncation marker on the safety cap. Bases Map export is deferred because its MapLibre WebGL layer cannot yet be captured reliably. See CHANGELOG.md for the full list.

Obsidian Table Exporter is for the moment when a table or structured view already looks right in Obsidian, but getting it out into a clean, reusable format is still awkward. It works from the rendered table or Bases view in the active note, so image and PDF exports stay much closer to what you actually see in Obsidian.

Contents

• Why people use it
• Preview
• Quick start
• Features
• Installation
• Development
• Troubleshooting
• Limitations

Why people use it

• Turn a long rendered table into a clean image without stitching screenshots
• Capture the currently rendered visual state of a Bases view as PNG/PDF
• Export table data to CSV or Excel without rebuilding it by hand
• Share a paginated PDF without relying on the default print flow
• Prefer the table you just hovered or clicked when a note contains several tables

Who this is for

• People who use Obsidian tables as working material, not just archive content
• People who need to move a finished table into chat, docs, slides, or reports
• People who sometimes need the visual result and sometimes need the raw data
• People who are tired of stitching screenshots or reformatting tables by hand

What happens after export

Think of the plugin as a handoff tool between note-taking and the next workflow step.

• PNG Best when the table only needs to be seen and shared cleanly
• CSV / Excel Best when the table still needs sorting, filtering, or more work
• PDF Best when the table should circulate like a document instead of a screenshot

Preview

Bases Table exported as PDF

A Bases Table view, exported as paginated PDF. Rows are collected from the virtualized scroll container, so the export includes every row in the Base, not just the visible viewport.

Bases Table exported as Excel with column types preserved

checkbox columns become real boolean cells, date columns become ISO date strings, number columns are written as numeric cells.

Wide table exported as PDF

Useful when the table is better reviewed as a document than as a pasted image.

Mixed-language content

The exporter is designed to stay readable when a table mixes English and Chinese content.

Long PNG export preview

Long status tables and research logs are the cases where manual screenshots usually become painful.

Quick start

1. Open a note in reading view or live preview, or open a Bases view.
2. Put the pointer over the table or Bases view you want to export.
3. Run Table Exporter: Export table or Bases view as PNG, CSV, Excel, or PDF.
4. For PNG and PDF, adjust the per-run export options if needed.
5. Grab the result from your vault's export folder.

Features

• Export rendered Markdown tables and Bases views as PNG
• Export Markdown table and Bases Table view data as CSV
• Export Markdown table and Bases Table view data as Excel (.xlsx)
• Export rendered Markdown tables and Bases views as paginated PDF
• Choose between a clean export style and the current rendered Obsidian style
• Tune export options per run instead of changing global settings every time
• Copy exported PNG files directly to the clipboard
• Reveal exported files in Finder or open them immediately after export
• Auto-detect multiple rendered tables and Bases views in the active file
• Prefer the table or Bases view you most recently hovered or clicked
• Save exports directly into a configurable folder inside the vault

Best use cases

• Product specs, research notes, and comparison grids you want to share as images
• Markdown tables that need to move into Excel or Google Sheets
• Long tables that break under Obsidian's normal print-to-PDF flow
• Notes with multiple rendered tables or embedded Bases views where you want the export command to prefer the one you just touched

Real examples

• A weekly project status table that needs to move from a note into a chat thread or report as one clean image
• A research comparison table that starts in Markdown but later needs to be sorted or filtered in Excel
• A decision log or operational table that is easier to circulate as a paginated PDF than as a screenshot
• A Bases project tracker or reading list that needs to leave Obsidian as a polished image or PDF

Commands

• Export table or Bases view
• Export table or Bases view as PNG
• Export table or Bases view as PNG and copy to clipboard
• Export table or Bases table as CSV
• Export table or Bases table as Excel
• Export table or Bases view as PDF
• Export table or Bases view as PDF with default options

Settings

• Export folder: vault folder where generated files are written
• Image scale: controls PNG/PDF sharpness
• Image background: background color for image-based exports
• Default visual style: choose between cleaned-up table styling and the current rendered look
• Default post-export action: do nothing, reveal in Finder, or open the exported file
• Default copy PNG to clipboard: opt into clipboard-friendly PNG exports
• Filename template: supports {{note}}, {{view}}, and {{index}}
• CSV delimiter: comma, semicolon, or tab
• PDF page size: A4 or Letter
• PDF orientation: portrait or landscape
• PDF margin: page margin for image-based PDF exports

Export options dialog

PNG and PDF exports open a per-run options dialog so you can tweak output without changing plugin defaults.

• Visual style: Clean export normalizes fonts, removes inline-code styling, and strips Obsidian-only highlight artifacts. Current rendered style stays closer to what you see in the note.
• Scale: controls image sharpness for PNG and image-based PDF.
• Background: sets the exported background color.
• PDF page size, orientation, and margin: adjust PDF pagination behavior.
• After export: optionally reveal the saved file in Finder or open it immediately.
• Copy PNG to clipboard: available for PNG exports and also exposed as a dedicated command.

Installation

Local install

1. Build the plugin:

npm install
npm run build

2. Copy these files into your vault plugin folder:

• main.js
• manifest.json
• styles.css

Target folder:

<your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/table-exporter/

3. In Obsidian:

• Open Settings -> Community plugins
• Reload community plugins if needed
• Enable Table Exporter

Release package

Prebuilt release assets are available on the GitHub Releases page.

Development

npm install
npm run dev

Other checks:

npm run check
npm test
npm run build
npm run release:check
npm run package

Project maintenance docs:

• CHANGELOG.md
• CONTRIBUTING.md
• CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
• RELEASE_CHECKLIST.md
• SECURITY.md

Troubleshooting

• PNG or PDF looks blank Use the latest build. Older builds had a cloned-DOM rendering issue that could produce white exports.
• The wrong table or Bases view was exported Hover or click the target view first, then run the command again.
• The table still looks too much like Obsidian Switch to Clean export in the export dialog.
• The PDF is too cramped Increase Margin, switch orientation, or use a higher Scale.
• I need selectable text in PDF That is not supported yet. Current PDF export is image-based by design.

Technical approach

• View discovery uses the active file view and scans rendered Markdown tables plus Bases views.
• Visual exports use a hybrid pipeline: clean export renders a normalized SVG/HTML representation for more predictable output, while current rendered style captures the live DOM with html2canvas.
• PDF export uses row-aware pagination for matrix tables and image slicing for visual-only Bases views.
• Data exports use normalized table matrices so colspan and rowspan do not break the output shape.

Limitations

• The plugin currently works with rendered tables in reading/preview mode and rendered Bases views, not raw source-mode text selections.
• CSV and Excel exports are limited to Markdown tables and Bases Table views. Cards and List views are visual exports only; Map export is not supported yet.
• Bases Map PNG/PDF export is blocked rather than producing a misleading blank map. The official Maps plugin renders its tiles through MapLibre WebGL, which the current capture pipeline cannot reproduce reliably.
• Long-image export scrolls the Bases view automatically during capture and restores the original position when done. Scroll-position drift detected between capture steps aborts with a clear error. The PNG/PDF reflects what was rendered during the walk, not arbitrary later state.
• Very large Bases may approach browser canvas height limits (commonly around 16,000 px). A 250-chunk cap prevents unbounded collection and adds a visible truncation marker when reached, but a single-canvas browser limit may cause an export to fail earlier. Narrow your filter or split the export for very large views.
• PDF export is image-based, so text in the PDF is not selectable yet.
• Formula support for Excel export is not included.

Roadmap ideas

• Export just the current text selection when it contains a table
• Per-export dialog with filename overrides
• Optional HTML export
• Better handling for nested Markdown inside cells
• Full long-image export for Bases Map views (deferred from v0.3)
• Multi-canvas emit for very tall stitched outputs (beyond a single canvas height limit)
• Selectable-text PDF generation

Links

• Community Directory: community.obsidian.md/plugins/table-exporter
• Official forum thread: forum.obsidian.md/t/table-exporter-export-rendered-markdown-tables-to-png-csv-excel-and-pdf/115162
• Practical guide: obsidian-plugins.lanternnight.top/guides/table-exporter
• Repository: github.com/wikty/obsidian-table-exporter
• Issues: github.com/wikty/obsidian-table-exporter/issues
• Releases: github.com/wikty/obsidian-table-exporter/releases

License

MIT