15 Obsidian Markdown cases, exported to Word without Pandoc: what leaked and what didn't

Exporting notes from Obsidian to Word can lead to unexpected issues, as demonstrated in a test log of a plugin called DOCX Export Studio. The plugin, written by an AI assistant for the AI-assisted studio Quillfern, aims to simplify the process of exporting notes to Word documents without the need for Pandoc. However, the results of the test reveal that the plugin encounters difficulties with certain Markdown syntax elements.

During the test, 15 fixture notes were created, each focusing on a specific syntax family. Each note was processed through the plugin's real exportToDocx function, and the resulting .docx files were examined for any leftover syntax. The test found that the plugin successfully handled most of the syntax, but there were still some issues that needed to be addressed.

The first set of syntax that caused problems included setext headings (a title over a line of equals signs), task states (/[\\] and [-]), and HTML comments (/[\\]-- draft --/). These issues were fixed in version 0.1.3 of the plugin, with the plain text versions of the headings and task states appearing in the exported documents. However, the HTML comments were still visible in the document, which may not be desirable.

Other syntax elements, such as footnotes, math expressions, embeds, callout fold markers, and tables with various formatting options, were mostly handled correctly by the plugin. However, some of these elements, like footnotes, were not included in the free version of the plugin and were documented in the README file.

The test log also revealed that the plugin ignored certain syntax elements, such as callout fold markers, and expanded them to plain text, which may not always be the desired behavior. Additionally, the plugin had no issues with handling various Markdown syntax elements, such as nested callouts, wikilinks, images, tables, code fences, highlights, tags, frontmatter, control characters, and even text in different languages, including Cyrillic, CJK, RTL, and emoji.

To ensure that the exporter works as intended, it is recommended to run a quick check on any tool used for exporting notes from Obsidian to Word. This can be done by exporting a single note containing all the mentioned syntax elements and searching the resulting .docx file for any leftover syntax, such as $$ or a lone $ for math, ![[ for embeds, and [^ for footnotes.

If any of these syntax elements are found, it indicates that the exporter did not handle that particular syntax correctly, and further investigation may be necessary before sharing the exported file.