How to Highlight Text on Any Website

What This Does

Select text, pick a color, and the text stays marked.

Every highlight you make is saved. Come back to the same page next week and your marks are still there.

Who is This For?

This feature helps if:

• You study from web pages and need to find the important lines again
• You research across many pages and want the useful parts in one place
• You read better when you mark up the text
• You sort information by color
• You return to the same reference pages often

How to Turn On the Highlighter

1. Click the Helperbird icon in your browser toolbar.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the menu and open All Features.
3. Find Highlighter in the list.
4. Turn its toggle on.

View full-size image (opens in a new tab)

Turning Highlighter on shows your saved highlights and makes the color palette available when you select text. A confirmation appears after the setting is saved.

The separate Highlight Menu contains the reading tools. If both are on, the reading menu appears above your selection and the color palette below it. Near the edge of the window, the menus move to fit without covering each other. You can use either menu on its own.

How to Highlight Text

1. Select the words you want to mark.
2. Choose a color directly from the palette below the selection: Blue, Green, Red, Yellow, Gray or Purple.

View full-size image (opens in a new tab)

The text takes that color straight away. Select more text to add another highlight.

View full-size image (opens in a new tab)

Making highlights requires Helperbird Pro. Free users can still view previously saved highlights when Highlighter is on, but do not see the creation palette.

Each highlight keeps the color you chose. The Colors panel is for page text, links and backgrounds; Highlighter has its own control in All Features.

Where Your Highlights Go

Every highlight is saved to Notes as well as painted on the page.

Click a highlight, or press Enter or Space when it has focus, and Notes opens in a new tab. From Notes you can export what you have gathered as a PDF or as plain text.

Clicking a highlight does not remove it. You delete a highlight in Notes.

Your saved highlights keep appearing even when the Highlight Menu toggle is off. The reading menu is independent. To hide both the saved marks and the color palette without deleting anything, turn Highlighter off. That toggle is a Helperbird Pro feature. See how to hide your highlights.

Limits and Browser Support

Your highlights come back when you open the same web address. Links that carry extra text after a question mark, such as tracking links and search result links, can count as a different address. When that happens the marks do not appear.

By default your highlights follow you to the browsers you are signed in to. If you have turned Sync off in Helperbird's settings, they stay on this device. See how to sync your Helperbird settings.

Storage space can run out. If it fills up, Helperbird saves to this device instead. If that is full too, the highlight is not saved.

The web selection menus are not available inside Helperbird’s PDF Reader. Use its drawing tools or text boxes to annotate a PDF.

Video Tutorial

This video shows an older combined menu. Use the separate Highlighter toggle and palette described above in the current version.

Related Guides

• Word spotlight - A yellow highlight that follows your mouse and saves nothing.
• The Highlight Menu - Read aloud, look up words, search and translate selected text.
• Highlight words as they are read aloud - Word highlighting that follows the voice.
• Notes - Where your highlights collect and how to export them.
• Hide your highlights - Clear the color from the screen without deleting it.

Need Additional Help?

If you have any questions or run into any issues, please contact the Helperbird support team. You can reach us at Helperbird support. We are happy to help you get the most out of Helperbird.