Merging Old Notes into One: Illustrations & Insights Combined

A single Obsidian Excalidraw card can now hold both a diagram and its supporting notes—without splitting the content into separate files—by using Excalidraw’s “back side” as a markdown note. The practical payoff is that related information stays physically together: the drawing remains the illustration, while analysis text (like SWAT, Porter’s Five Forces, or PESTEL-style writeups) lives on the reverse side so it can be referenced, edited, and linked as one unit.

The workflow starts by converting an existing note into the two-sided card format. For SWAT analysis, the notes are moved onto the back of the Excalidraw card by opening the drawing as a markdown note and inserting the analysis text into the back-side region. When the document references a section, that back-side content can be embedded into other pages as an image—so the main business analysis document keeps a clean, single-image representation while still retaining the underlying editable notes on the card itself.

A key detail is how self-references are handled. An image embedded inside the note can point to the drawing file itself without creating recursive loops, because the reference targets the file as an image rather than referencing a text section that would re-trigger the same embedding behavior.

The transcript then walks through converting a Porter’s Five Forces note into the same structure. The user opens the existing Porter’s Five Forces markdown note and the corresponding Excalidraw drawing, flips the drawing to its back side, and copies the note text into the back-side area (the “sweet spot” is above text elements but below document properties/front matter). After pasting, the crucial step is preserving existing links: instead of deleting and renaming the original note file, the user merges the empty note with the Excalidraw file using “merge entire file with…”. This results in one file name that now contains both the drawing and the back-side notes, so references across the knowledge base remain intact.

Once converted, the business analysis document can embed Porter’s Five Forces as an image using a section hashtag/selection mechanism, returning the original reading experience—heading plus image—while the full analysis remains accessible by flipping the card. The same pattern is applied to SWAT analysis and other visual thinking tools.

Finally, the setup includes a speed shortcut: a hotkey in Obsidian settings toggles between Excalidraw and markdown mode (configured as Control+Alt+E in the example). That lets the user quickly turn the page to the back side to add or refine notes, without repeatedly switching modes manually. The result is a tighter, more maintainable knowledge system where diagrams and their rationale travel together.