Obsidian users can’t use formulas flexibly in notes
Obsidian users want mathematical notation in note properties and calculated property values inline in note text, but these capabilities are limited or unavailable. They move data into the note body or rely on Bases and Meta Bind, which can make information harder to search or keep calculations confined to particular views. One Hacker News signal raises a broader document-formula problem, but most of the evidence is specifically about Obsidian.
For obsidian users with formula-heavy notes. Mentioned from Nov 2025 to Sep 2026 on product forums and Hacker News.
5 different people described this problem in 3 separate discussions.
- Indie fit
- 5.0/10
- Pain
- 5.6/10
- Frequency
- 6.5/10
- Willingness to pay
- 0.0/10
- Momentum
- 5.6/10
- Who pays
- Consumers
- Competition
- Medium
- Build difficulty
- Medium
What people said
Quoted word for word. Follow a link to read the whole discussion.
If it was possible to use expressions from bases inline I would not need to use meta bind anymore. For the above example the base expression would be this.file.properties['charisma'] / 2 - 5 But I can’t get the value outside of an inline base
Formulas allow to display large amount of information, but they are limited to Bases. That makes it hard to build complex ideas for them, as they are limited in such way
Build brief
See what to build and who will buy it
- 2 product ideas with the smallest useful version and pricing
- 3 places to find your first customers
- 3 more quotes from people who have this problem
- Current workarounds, existing solutions and risks