PTPL 085: CalcCraft is the Obsidian Tables Plugin I Was Looking For!
PTPL 085: CalcCraft is the Obsidian Tables Plugin I Was Looking For!
Plus a wannabe replacement for the infamous Comic Sans
Welcome! I’m Ellane, and this is a weekly, garage-door-up summary of how I’m learning to simplify and future-proof my digital-analog workflow.
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Replacing Comic Sans, at last
Here’s a 22 minute video about the infamous Comic Sans. It’s a good history of how it became one of the most used and most hated fonts of all time.
If you’re scratching your head at what font choices have to do with productivity, try changing your notes app font to 8 point Alumni Sans Collegiate, and see how you get along!
Fonts are all about dressing your words in clothing that suits the occasion. You’re not going to wear a ball gown or tux to a football game (especially not if you’re playing), and a baggy t-shirt isn’t going to cut it for a night at the opera (especially if you’re singing).
Font choices absolutely affect my productivity.
You may enjoy the experience of seeing a handwritten-style font as the interface for your phone (Android allows this), while for me this would be akin to rubbing velvet up the wrong way or scratching my nails on a chalkboard every time I used the device.
Simplified formulas in Markdown tables!
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my attempts to write simple formulas for my Markdown tables, to make tracking finances easier. Stowe Boyd kindly let me know in the comments about an Obsidian plugin I’d never heard of — CalcCraft. I’m pretty chuffed to have found it! Thanks, Stowe.
The documentation for this plugin gave me just enough information to be able to work out the formulas for what I’ve been wanting to do in my Markdown expense trackers: calculate the sum of a column of figures, and calculate the account balance after adding the Deposit and subtracting the Withdrawal from the previous row’s Balance.
I’m well aware it’d be easier in many ways to use a spreadsheet, but I’m far too comfortable with my Markdown-flavoured plain text life to want to give that up! Especially now that Obsidian Sync makes all the information quickly and reliably available on my phone.
CalcCraft adds numbers (1, 2, 3…) to rows, and letters (a, b, c…) to columns, so that formulas have a reference point.
These are the two formulas I’m using, which I’ve made into snippets in Keyboard Maestro for quick access:
=sum(+0c2:+0c-1r)Calculate the sum of all figures in the current row, from one row below the header to the row above the cell in which the formula lives
=(-0c-1r)+(-1c+0r)-(-2c+0r)Calculate the new balance by adding anything in the Deposit column, and subtracting anything in the Withdrawal column, all on the same row
Note that these formulas are relative. They refer to the first or second column from the column in which the formula sits, rather than specific table coordinates. In the Balance column below, you need to enter the balance figure once, on the first row. As expected, the formula takes care of the rest.
| Date | Transaction | Withdrawal | Deposit | Balance |
|:----:| ----------- | ----------:| -------:| ---------------------------:|
| 13 | 446.00 | | 14.00 | 14.00 |
| 13 | 446.00 | 4.00 | | =(-0c-1r)+(-1c+0r)-(-2c+0r) |
| 13 | Stripe | | 3.07 | =(-0c-1r)+(-1c+0r)-(-2c+0r) |The plugin’s documentation explains this and other, far more complicated formulas, in more detail. Check it out.
Ellane loves helping simplicity-focused Apple users to plan and learn effectively and autonomously.
This post is also on Medium, and includes a Friend link for non-paying subscribers.
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