Hello,
How do I change the default indentation size? For example from 4 to 2 spaces? How do I change indentation style from tabs to spaces? I looked through the settings but I couldn’t find it?
Right now this list with subitems is not rendering correctly in DT4:
It might be hard to see. But Obsidian is rendering the subitems directly under ‘A’ good etc.
If you’re referring to Markdown documents: provide the correct CSS styles. But take note that the concept of “spaces” for indentation makes little sense with non-fixed-width fonts.
And I suspect that DT does not recognize your sublist items as such
Yes, Markdown. With 4 spaces, it does seem to show the subitems correctly. So I was under the impression that changing this default behavior (4 to 2 spaces) would fix the problem.
MD has standardized the indentation for lists and sublists. That is not subject to customization. So, no tabs instead of spaces, I guess. Check out the manual for MultiMarkdown 6, as that is what DT uses. Obsidian might behave differently and it’s well known for inventing its own rules.
The solution here is simple. Type two spaces before starting your Markdown list, then tab indent for sub items, and it will render perfectly
I must admit, I get pretty peeved when reading inaccurate comments regarding Obsidian breaking Markdown standards. The number one culprit in faulty Markdown document rendering is third party community created plugins (any third party plugin solution, available in any core software product, can break things).
The base Obsidian program is standards compliant, although not MultiMarkdown compliant, which in terms of real-world utilisation in 2025, lags far behind other Markdown standards. CommonMark and Github flavoured Markdown are the most used across various domains in 2025. MultiMarkdown is still favoured in some academic circles, mainly for its built-in support for citations, and CriticMarkup. These are features that can be enabled in Obsidian via community created plugins.
Obsidian supports CommonMark, GitHub Flavored Markdown, and LaTeX. Obsidian does not support using Markdown formatting or blank lines inside of HTML tags.
More info here: Obsidian Flavored Markdown - Obsidian Help
Okay, interesting. I didn’t know. Thanks for the clarification.
I don’t get why you’re using spaces instead of tabs for sublists. It’s very quick to press Return, press Tab, and you’ve indented the list item.
And the rendered appearance is controlled by CSS, as noted by @chrillek.
The official Readwise plugin for Obsidian creates these Markdown files. The sublists render correctly in various Markdown editors I tried, but not in Devonthink, and I still don’t know why.
This is how MultiMarkdown handles sublists, a tab or 4 spaces…
Could this be adjusted? Possibly, but development would have to assess this.
I think that ![[link]] is an Obsidian invention. I couldn’t find any reference to that format in the CommonMark description and not supported in GitHub MD: GitHub Flavored Markdown Spec
Neither could I find the ^id to “identify a block” in GitHub MD or in CommonMark.
So it seems that Obsidian itself does indeed invent MD syntax that is not available in GitHub or CommonMark.
I don’t understand the reference to LaTeX in this context. TeX is a completely different and much older markup language than MD, and it has a very different purpose. As has the LaTeX macro set on top of it.
Okay, I didn’t know. So it’s because of the MD flavor DT supports?
I was aware that DT doesn’t support the ^id block syntax for block transclusions. But the spaces/tab thing I was unaware of. It seems DT is rather specific which MD flavor is supported.
It relies on the MMD processor. So, yes, it is specific. As is most every MD processor or language compiler, for that matter. The syntax is well-defined, there are some, equally well-defined, extensions, and that is that. Hugo (a static site generator) for example supports CommonMark, and only CommonMark. Which also can lead people to discover interesting edge cases, for example when mixing HTML and MD.
Interesting, Thanks!
I think it would be a reasonable consideration to be added.
I tend to always start my Markdown list by first adding two spaces before the first -. But I do this because I rarely look at fully rendered Markdown unless I’m exporting a document (generally via Marked, with a custom CSS).
It’s a hack, but I’ve never seen it fail in any of the Markdown engines I use, inclusive of DT. The reason I use it, is that 95% of my time using Markdown is in hybrid rendering modes, like that one encounter’s in DT, Obsidian, Typora etc, and the extra two spaces creates a nice indentation of the 1st level of the list in hybrid rendering modes, that still looks great, when fully rendered.
@chrillek The whole point of the page I linked, is that it covers the Obsidian flavoured Markdown syntax that’s supplemental to CommonMark and Github.
I’ve actually never heard of anyone doing this.
And I’ll leave “reasonable” (and feasible) up to development to determine 
To the first point, I showed that it works in DT in my first post in this thread. And to the second, all I was suggesting, was that the OP’s request seems reasonable for the dev team to consider.
I can’t remember where I first picked up on the two spaces hack, but it could have been when FoldingText was part of my workflow. Cheap hacks were the name of the game with FoldingText. 
