How to export Obsidian notes to Word

To export Obsidian notes to Word, use a community plugin such as Pandoc Plugin, Enhancing Export or DOCX Exporter, or run one Pandoc command: pandoc note.md -o note.docx. Obsidian itself only exports notes to PDF, and only on desktop. Whichever route you take, check your [[wikilinks]] and ![[embeds]], because they are Obsidian syntax and don't come through on their own.

Obsidian facts below are from the Obsidian Help source and the plugin listings on community.obsidian.md, checked in October 2026.

Can Obsidian export to Word without a plugin?

No. We searched the full English help source in the obsidian-help repository for "docx", "Word document" and "export", checked in October 2026. Obsidian's built-in exports are:

• A note to PDF, desktop only.
• A Canvas to PNG, with Canvas: Export as image, desktop only (Canvas).
• A Base to CSV, with Export CSV (Views).

If the person you're sending the note to only needs to read it, PDF may be enough. Per the PDF help page:

1. Open the note you want to export.
2. Open the Command palette and select Export to PDF... (or use More options in the note).
3. Choose your settings: Include file name as title, Page size (A3, A4, A5, Legal, Letter, Tabloid), Landscape, Margin and Downscale percent.
4. Select Export to PDF and choose where to save the file.

"Exports always use light styling, even if your theme is dark," the page says, and a CSS snippet can change the look. The page also says PDF export "is not available in the Obsidian app on mobile."

If someone needs to edit the document or add tracked changes, you want a .docx.

Which Obsidian plugin exports to Word?

Here are three of the plugins on the official community directory that export to .docx. Details are from each listing, checked in October 2026:

Plugin	Needs Pandoc installed	Runs on	Listing details
Pandoc Plugin	Yes	Desktop	562k downloads, v0.4.1 (September 2022)
Enhancing Export	Yes, 3.1.9 or later	Desktop	465k downloads, v1.11.3 (August 2026)
DOCX Exporter	No	Desktop and mobile	About 18k downloads, v1.0.2 (December 2025)

Pandoc Plugin offers "commands to export to Pandoc-supported formats like DOCX, ePub and PDF." Its listing warns that it "is in beta, and there are often minor formatting issues. Make sure to proof-read the output!"

1. Install Pandoc first. The author's installation guide says "You must install Pandoc first," and without it "only the HTML export works."
2. Open the Command palette with Ctrl+P (Cmd+P on a Mac), type "Pandoc" and pick the format.
3. Find the file next to the note: Pandoc.md becomes Pandoc.docx.

If you see "Pandoc is not installed or accessible on your PATH," point the plugin's Pandoc path setting at the Pandoc program.

Enhancing Export is also built on Pandoc. Open the note's file menu, choose Export to..., and pick the format. It needs Pandoc 3.1.9 or later, either on your PATH or set in the plugin's settings.

DOCX Exporter needs nothing else installed, which makes it the only one of the three that works on a phone. Run Export current note to DOCX from the command palette. Its listing notes one known issue: the file can look wrong in Apple Pages or macOS Preview, and re-saving it in Microsoft Word fixes it.

None of the three listings say how they handle wikilinks or embedded notes. Export one note that has both before you export a whole folder.

How do you export an Obsidian note to Word with Pandoc yourself?

Pandoc is a free, open-source document converter. Install it from pandoc.org, open a terminal in your vault folder, and run:

pandoc "My note.md" -o "My note.docx"

Pandoc picks the formats from the file extensions. The Pandoc User's Guide says that "if the input or output format is not specified explicitly, pandoc will attempt to guess it from the extensions of the filenames" (checked in October 2026). In our test, headings came out as Word's Heading 1 and Heading 2 styles, and lists and tables as real Word lists and tables.

For a note with wikilinks and attachments, add two options:

pandoc "My note.md" \
  --from=markdown+wikilinks_title_after_pipe \
  --resource-path=".:attachments" \
  -o "My note.docx"

• wikilinks_title_after_pipe is one of Pandoc's "non-default extensions." It reads [[Note]] and [[Note|alias]]. Obsidian puts the display text after the pipe, as in [[Example|Custom name]] (Internal links, checked in October 2026), so this is the variant that matches.
• --resource-path lists the folders where Pandoc looks for images. Replace attachments with your vault's attachment folder. Separate folders with : on macOS and Linux and with ; on Windows. Without the option, Pandoc only looks in the folder you run it from.

We ran this on a test note with pandoc 3.9. It exited cleanly, and the image from attachments/ was inside the .docx. When an image can't be found, Pandoc prints [WARNING] Could not fetch resource image.png: replacing image with description and keeps going, so read the terminal output.

What happens to wikilinks and embeds in the Word file?

This is where Obsidian notes differ from plain Markdown. Here is what our pandoc 3.9 test produced:

In the note	Plain pandoc	With +wikilinks_title_after_pipe
[[Other note]]	Literal text with brackets	A link named "Other note" that points at the bare note name
[[Other note|alias]]	Literal text with brackets	A link with the text "alias"
![[image.png]]	Literal text	The image, if Pandoc can find the file
![[Other note]] (embedded note)	Literal text	An image named "Other note"; the note's text is not included
	The image, if Pandoc can find the file	The image, if Pandoc can find the file

Two things follow.

Links won't take the reader anywhere. A wikilink points at a note name, not a file or a web address, so in Word it reads as a link that opens nothing useful. For a document you send to someone, plain text or a web URL is usually better.

Embedded notes don't come along. Obsidian embeds a note when you put ! in front of an internal link, as in ![[Internal links]] (Embed files, checked in October 2026). Pandoc doesn't pull that note's content in. Before exporting, paste the embedded text into the note itself, or export the embedded note separately.

For new notes, Obsidian can write standard Markdown links instead of wikilinks. Open Settings, go to Files and links, and turn off Use [[Wikilinks]]. The links help page says "if interoperability is important to you, you can disable Wikilinks and use Markdown links instead" (checked in October 2026). It doesn't say whether existing links change, so check a few older notes after you switch.

How do you make the Word file match your template?

Pandoc styles the .docx from a reference document. Save Pandoc's default one:

pandoc -o custom-reference.docx --print-default-data-file reference.docx

Open custom-reference.docx in Word, change the styles (Heading 1, Normal, table style and so on), and save it. Then export with it:

pandoc "My note.md" --reference-doc=custom-reference.docx -o "My note.docx"

The manual describes --reference-doc as "a style reference in producing a docx or ODT file." The text inside the reference file is ignored; its styles, margins, page size, header and footer are used. So edit the styles, not the sample text. For more on what survives the conversion, including tables and code blocks, see Markdown to Word and PDF, fully offline.

Which route should you pick?

• Someone only needs to read it: Obsidian's built-in Export to PDF.
• You export now and then on a computer: a Pandoc-based plugin, or DOCX Exporter if you'd rather not install Pandoc.
• You're on a phone or tablet: DOCX Exporter, the only one of the three that runs on mobile.
• You need control over links, images and styles, or you export many notes: Pandoc from the terminal, with --reference-doc.

Is there an editor with Word export built in?

If you'd rather have Word export as a menu item, Noteline, which we make, is one option. It opens your vault folder as-is, with no import step, and leaves the .obsidian folder untouched. Its desktop app ships with bundled Pandoc and Typst, so File ▸ Export as Word… writes a .docx on your computer, offline. It is not an Obsidian replacement. It shows [[wikilinks]] as literal text and exports them that way, exports ![[...]] embeds as literal text too (only standard ![alt](path) images reach the Word file, and only when the path leads to the image from the note's folder, such as ![alt](attachments/image.png)), and shows images as alt text in the editor. It has no plugins, backlinks or graph view, and Word export is desktop only; the web and phone apps don't export Word. It's on the download page, and terms are on the pricing page.