Free tool, runs in your browser
Highlight Text on Any Web Page and Share the Link
Paste the address of a page and the words you want people to see. The generator builds a link that opens the page, scrolls to those words and highlights them in every current browser. No account, nothing uploaded, nothing stored.
In short
A link to highlighted text is a page address with #:~:text= and a phrase on the end. Paste the address and the sentence into the generator above and it builds the link; anyone who opens it lands on the passage with it marked, in any current browser. Nothing is stored, and no account is needed.
How it works
The link the generator makes is an ordinary web address with a text fragment on the end: #:~:text= followed by your words, encoded so that spaces and punctuation travel safely. When someone opens it, their browser loads the page as usual, searches the visible text for your words, scrolls there and paints the match. The part after # is never sent to the website, so the site cannot see what you highlighted, and nothing about the link passes through this site either: the whole thing is assembled by a few lines of script running in your browser.
Copy the page address
From the address bar of the page you are reading. If the address has a
#somethingat the end, that is fine; the generator removes it.Paste the sentence
Exactly as it appears on the page, including punctuation. Whole sentences match best. Fewer than about forty words is ideal.
Make the link and test it
Press the button, then open the test link in a new tab. You should land on the highlighted passage. If not, see the fixes below.
Copy and send
Paste the link into a message, a document, a lesson or a footnote. Add a word about what the reader will see.
The extra options
- End of range. Highlight from your sentence through a later phrase. Enter the first few words as the text and the last few words as the end. Good for long passages; the link stays short and the browser marks everything in between.
- Prefix and suffix. If your words appear more than once on the page, add the words just before or just after the one you mean. They are used only to pick the right match; they are not highlighted.
Link to highlighted text in real work: three examples
The generator is most useful when you are not on the page, or when your browser has no built-in command. These three cases show exactly what to type in each box.
A footnote in an essay
Page address: the report's address from the address bar. Text: the sentence you quote, copied from the page. Leave the extra options empty. Paste the result after the citation in the footnote, so a marker lands on the sentence. Pair it with a formal citation as described in pairing a highlight link with a formal citation.
A reading task for a class
Page address: the article. Text: the first five words of the passage. End of range: the last four words. The link now marks the whole passage without the address becoming a paragraph long. Put it in the lesson plan with one line saying what students should notice.
A fact check with a repeated phrase
The phrase "no significant change" appears three times in the source. Text: the phrase. Prefix: the two words before the one you mean. Suffix: the two words after. The link marks only that occurrence. One such link per claim, kept in a table with the claim and a verdict, is a claim-by-claim verification log that anyone can re-check.
Four ways to make the same link
| Where you are | Use | What you do | Range, prefix and suffix |
|---|---|---|---|
| On the page, in Chrome or Edge | Right-click command | Select, right-click, Copy link to highlight | Chosen by the browser |
| On the page, any desktop browser | Bookmarklet | Select, click the bookmark, Copy link | Range added automatically for long selections |
| On a phone | Share from the selection | Select, Share, choose the app | Chosen by the browser |
| Anywhere, with an address and a sentence | This generator | Paste both, press the button, test | All three, set by you |
Expert tips for the generator
- Copy the sentence from the page rather than typing it. Curly quotes, double spaces and non-breaking spaces are invisible in print and break matches.
- Test in a private window. A logged-in session can show a different version of a page from the one your reader will see.
- For anything you will cite, select the exact sentence first; selecting an exact sentence by keyboard before you paste it avoids the stray half-word that is the commonest reason a link opens at the top.
When the link does not highlight anything
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Page opens at the top, no highlight | The words on the page differ from what you typed (a typo, curly quotes, an edited sentence) | Copy the text directly from the page and paste it; shorten to one clause |
| Wrong passage is highlighted | The phrase appears earlier on the page | Add a prefix or suffix, or use a longer phrase |
| Highlight appears on your computer but not on a friend's | Their browser is older than Chrome 80, Safari 16.1 or Firefox 131 | The link still opens the page; tell them the passage |
| Nothing on a page that loads content slowly | The text arrives after the browser stops searching | Use the bookmarklet on the loaded page, or link to a print or reader version |
| Nothing inside a PDF | Text fragments work on HTML pages only | Use #page=N for PDFs, or the viewer's own highlighter |
If you came here from an old Awesome Highlighter link
From 2008 to about 2014 this page was the entrance to a tool that saved a copy of any page with your highlights and gave you a short link to it. Those saved copies and short links (/page/display/...) no longer exist; the shared highlights archive page explains what happened and what we know about the most-linked ones. The generator above does the same job without saving anything, using a browser standard that did not exist then. Links from the old highlighter that carried a page address (?url=) arrive here with the address already filled in.
For teachers, editors and teams
A highlight link is the quickest way to point a class or a colleague at one sentence without screenshots or copying. Students can create them without accounts on school devices (Chrome and Edge also have a right-click command, Copy link to highlight, that does the same thing). Editors can put them in footnotes so a reader lands on the quoted line. Our highlighting for teachers page has a ready-made lesson built on them, and the guide to linking to highlighted text covers every browser.
Three guides go further with what this tool makes: using highlight links as evidence when checking a source, linking a quotation to its original line, and making highlight links on a phone. The Awesome Highlighter homepage lists everything else on the site. How this connects to the record section: the link this tool builds is a small piece of provenance. It names the page, the exact sentence and, once you add the date, when you read it. Quoting textual evidence so the citation doubles as evidence of reading uses these links in essays, and checking a quotation that may be misattributed or AI-generated ends every check with one.
Common questions
Is the highlight link generator free?
Yes, with no account and no limits. It runs in your browser; this site does not receive the addresses or the text you enter.
Does the person I send the link to need to install anything?
No. Current versions of every major browser open text fragment links natively. Older browsers open the page at the top.
Can I highlight several passages in one link?
This generator makes one highlight per link, or one range. To mark several passages, make several links, or join text= parts with an ampersand by hand as described in the text fragment reference.
Does the highlight stay on the page for other visitors?
No. It appears only for people who open your link, in their own browser. The page itself is not changed.
Why does the yellow disappear when I click on the page?
Some browsers clear the highlight on interaction. The reader has already been taken to the passage, which is the point.
What happened to my saved highlights from the old site?
The old service stored copies of pages on its servers, which closed around 2015. Nothing from that period survived to this relaunch. See the shared highlights archive page.