Custom Styles¶

Styles are LaTeX header templates that control the visual appearance of PDF output: fonts, colors, headers/footers, heading formats, and page geometry.

Style Resolution¶

When a style name is specified in the config, obsidian-export looks for the corresponding header.tex template in this order:

style_dir field in config — explicit path to a style directory
Built-in styles — bundled with the package (e.g., default)
User styles — ~/.obsidian-export/styles/<name>/header.tex
Filesystem path — treat the style name as a direct path

Creating a Custom Style¶

Place your custom style in ~/.obsidian-export/styles/<name>/header.tex:

~/.obsidian-export/
  styles/
    my_brand/
      header.tex
      logo.png       # optional logo file

The header.tex file is a LaTeX preamble template. It supports placeholder variables that are substituted at render time:

{doc_title} — the document title (from frontmatter or filename)
{logo_path} — absolute path to the logo file

Style Configuration¶

Styles are configured via the style section in your config YAML. You can customize fonts, colors, headers/footers, heading formats, and more without writing LaTeX directly:

style:
  name: "default"
  fontsize: "12pt"
  mainfont: "Georgia"
  sansfont: "Helvetica"
  monofont: "Source Code Pro"
  geometry: "a4paper,margin=25mm"
  line_spacing: 1.5
  linkcolor: "NavyBlue"
  urlcolor: "NavyBlue"

Brand Colors¶

Define named colors for use in heading styles and title blocks:

style:
  brand_colors:
    petrol: [20, 75, 95]
    turkis: [0, 152, 160]

Colors are specified as RGB triplets (0-255).

Heading Styles¶

Customize the appearance of section headings:

style:
  heading_styles:
    - level: "section"
      size: "Large"
      bold: true
      sans: true
      color: "petrol"
      uppercase: false
    - level: "subsection"
      size: "large"
      bold: true
      sans: true
      color: "turkis"
      uppercase: true

Available sizes (LaTeX): huge, LARGE, Large, large, normalsize, small.

Title Style¶

Customize the document title block:

style:
  title_style:
    size: "huge"
    bold: true
    sans: true
    color: "petrol"
    date_visible: true
    vskip_after: "2em"

Headers and Footers¶

Configure page headers and footers with placeholder support:

style:
  header_left: "{doc_title}"
  header_right: "My Company"
  footer_left: ""
  footer_center: "\\thepage"
  footer_right: ""
  logo: "logo.png"

The {doc_title} and {logo_path} placeholders are replaced at render time.