# Awesome Highlighter

> Highlight text on any web page and share a link that opens it highlighted. Free tools with no account and nothing stored, plus plain guides on highlighting.

Awesome Highlighter is an independent reference site with two free, in-browser tools for highlighting text on the web and sharing a link to the exact passage. It is edited by one named person, carries no advertising and no affiliate links, sets no cookies, and never receives what visitors type or highlight; page views are counted with cookieless, aggregate analytics. The name belongs to a 2008 tool whose shared pages are documented in the archive.

Cite pages by their canonical address. Each guide ends with linked sources and shows the month it was last reviewed.

## Start here
- [Highlight link generator](https://awesomehighlighter.com/highlight/): Free highlight link generator: paste a page address and a sentence, get a link that opens the page scrolled to that sentence, highlighted. Nothing stored.
- [Highlighter bookmarklet](https://awesomehighlighter.com/bookmarklet/): The Awesome Highlighter bookmarklet marks selected text yellow and gives you a link to it from any page, with nothing installed. Drag it to your bookmarks.
- [How to Link to Highlighted Text on Any Page](https://awesomehighlighter.com/guides/link-to-highlighted-text/)

## Record: Highlights as a Record: Evidence of Reading, Sourcing and Authorship
- [Section overview](https://awesomehighlighter.com/record/): A reading record made of highlights, dated notes and links: what it proves about your reading, sourcing and authorship, and how to start one in ten minutes.
- [How to Annotate a Text So Your Marks Become a Record](https://awesomehighlighter.com/record/how-to-annotate-a-text/): How to annotate a text so your highlights and margin notes become evidence of reading: what to mark, a small symbol set, dated notes and a worked example.
- [How to Cite a Quote So a Reader Can Check It](https://awesomehighlighter.com/record/how-to-cite-a-quote/): How to cite a quote in APA 7, MLA 9 and Chicago: one Darwin sentence three ways, block quotes, ellipses and a highlight link so readers can verify the source.
- [Write an Annotated Bibliography From Your Highlights](https://awesomehighlighter.com/record/annotated-bibliography-from-highlights/): What an annotated bibliography is, and how to draft each entry from your highlighted passages, in APA 7 and MLA 9, so the list doubles as evidence of reading.
- [A Source Verification Workflow Built on Highlights](https://awesomehighlighter.com/record/source-verification-workflow/): A source verification workflow for journalists, editors and students: verify the source, find the primary document, highlight the passage and link the line.
- [Export Highlights and Notes as a Record of Work](https://awesomehighlighter.com/record/export-annotations-as-a-record-of-work/): How to export highlights and notes from Kindle, Apple Books, Adobe Acrobat and Hypothesis into a dated plain file that stands as evidence of work and reading.
- [Content Credentials for Readers: What the Label Can and Cannot Tell You](https://awesomehighlighter.com/record/content-credentials-for-readers/): What a Content Credentials label on an image tells you, how the C2PA standard signs it, how to inspect one, what strips it, and what absence does not mean.
- [How to Cite Textual Evidence as Evidence of Reading](https://awesomehighlighter.com/record/cite-textual-evidence-as-a-record-of-reading/): How to cite textual evidence: the claim, quote, explain pattern, choosing the exact line, and a highlight link that makes each citation evidence of reading.
- [A Reading Log That Works as Evidence of Reading](https://awesomehighlighter.com/record/reading-log-as-evidence-of-reading/): A reading log template with six columns: date, source, pages, a quoted line with its link, a sentence in your own words, a question. Evidence of reading.
- [How to Prove You Didn't Use AI: Authorship Evidence](https://awesomehighlighter.com/record/how-to-prove-you-did-not-use-ai/): How to prove you didn't use AI when nobody can prove a negative: build evidence of authorship from dated highlights, notes, an outline and version history.
- [Version History in Google Docs as an Authorship Record](https://awesomehighlighter.com/record/version-history-as-an-authorship-record/): How to open the version history Google Docs keeps, name and share versions, and pair the timeline with highlighted sources to make a record of authorship.
- [Primary Sources and Provenance: Trace a Claim to Its Origin](https://awesomehighlighter.com/record/primary-sources-and-provenance/): What a primary source is, how it differs from secondary and tertiary sources, and how to trace a claim back to the original document to verify the source.
- [How to Cite a Website So Readers Can Verify the Source](https://awesomehighlighter.com/record/cite-a-website-so-readers-can-verify-the-source/): Learn how to cite a website in APA 7, MLA 9 and Chicago: one NASA page three ways, missing author or date, and archives that let readers verify the source.
- [Digital Evidence for Readers: Archives and Provenance](https://awesomehighlighter.com/record/digital-evidence-for-readers/): What makes digital evidence of a web page believable: the address, the date, a third-party archive, a highlight link and a note. Provenance for readers.
- [Misattributed and AI-Generated Quotes: How to Check Them](https://awesomehighlighter.com/record/misattributed-and-ai-generated-quotes/): How to check misattributed quotes and AI-generated quotations: search the exact words, find the earliest dated printing, verify the source, keep a highlight.

## Study: How to Highlight Effectively for Study
- [Section overview](https://awesomehighlighter.com/study/): Highlighting for learning: a three-colour code that works, what research says about highlighting and memory, teacher activities, and highlights into notes.
- [A Highlighter Colour Code System That Works](https://awesomehighlighter.com/study/highlighter-color-code-system/): A three-colour highlighting system for textbooks, articles and PDFs: what each colour means, why three is the limit, and how to use it on paper and on screen.
- [Does Highlighting Help You Learn?](https://awesomehighlighter.com/study/does-highlighting-help-you-learn/): What research says about highlighting and memory: why passive highlighting barely helps, the conditions under which it does, and how to make highlights work.
- [Highlighting for Teachers: Activities That Teach It Well](https://awesomehighlighter.com/study/highlighting-for-teachers/): Classroom activities for teaching students to highlight selectively, a shared-highlighting lesson with free no-account tools, and a rubric for assessing it.
- [How to Turn Highlights Into Notes You Actually Use](https://awesomehighlighter.com/study/turn-highlights-into-notes/): A three-pass method for turning highlights from books, PDFs and web pages into notes: restate, connect, test. With an export workflow and a worked example.
- [Close Reading for AI Writing Patterns: What to Highlight](https://awesomehighlighter.com/study/close-reading-for-ai-writing-patterns/): A close-reading method for text that may be machine written: what to highlight (hedging, uniform cadence, stock transitions) and what the marks cannot prove.
- [Authorship Review With Highlights: A Fair Method](https://awesomehighlighter.com/study/highlighting-for-authorship-review/): A fair, evidence-first way for teachers and students to review who wrote a piece of work: highlight drafts and sources, compare versions, and talk it through.
- [Show Your Writing Process With Annotated Drafts](https://awesomehighlighter.com/study/annotate-drafts-to-show-your-process/): How students can mark up their own drafts, notes and sources so the writing process is visible: version history, highlighted revisions and a short note.
- [How to Disclose AI Help in Your Writing](https://awesomehighlighter.com/study/disclose-ai-help-in-your-writing/): When and how to say that an AI tool helped with your writing: what schools and journals expect, example disclosure sentences, and what to keep as a record.

## Guides: How to Highlight Text Online: Guides
- [Section overview](https://awesomehighlighter.com/guides/): Step-by-step guides to highlighting text on web pages, in PDFs and on phones, linking to highlighted text, and selecting text quickly with the keyboard.
- [How to Highlight Text on a Web Page](https://awesomehighlighter.com/guides/how-to-highlight-text-on-a-web-page/): Four ways to highlight text on any web page: select and share a link, use a bookmarklet, install an extension, or use the reader mode built into your browser.
- [How to Link to Highlighted Text on Any Page](https://awesomehighlighter.com/guides/link-to-highlighted-text/): Create a link that opens a web page scrolled to a sentence and highlights it. Step by step for every browser, plus how to fix links that stop working.
- [How to Highlight Text in a PDF](https://awesomehighlighter.com/guides/highlight-text-in-a-pdf/): Highlight text in a PDF in your browser, on Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android, save the highlights inside the file, and fix scanned PDFs that block selection.
- [How to Highlight Text on a Phone or Tablet](https://awesomehighlighter.com/guides/highlight-text-on-phone/): Select and highlight text on iPhone, iPad and Android: the press-and-hold gestures, the share trick that sends a highlighted link, and apps that keep them.
- [Keyboard Shortcuts for Selecting Text](https://awesomehighlighter.com/guides/select-text-keyboard-shortcuts/): Select words, lines, paragraphs and whole pages with the keyboard on Windows, Mac and Linux, and combine shortcuts with the mouse for precise highlights.
- [How to Annotate a Source to Verify Its Claims](https://awesomehighlighter.com/guides/annotate-sources-to-verify-claims/): A step-by-step method for annotating an article or report to check its claims: mark each claim, find its evidence, trace it outward, and link to the proof.
- [How to Trace a Quote Back to Its Source](https://awesomehighlighter.com/guides/trace-a-quote-to-its-source/): Check whether a quotation is real: find the earliest source, compare the exact wording, confirm the speaker and context, and link to the original line.
- [How to Annotate an AI Chatbot Answer Before You Trust It](https://awesomehighlighter.com/guides/annotate-an-ai-chatbot-answer/): A method for checking a chatbot answer claim by claim: paste it into a document, highlight every claim, verify each against a real source, and keep the links.
- [How to Quote and Cite an AI Chatbot Answer](https://awesomehighlighter.com/guides/cite-an-ai-chatbot-answer/): How to quote a chatbot answer accurately, cite it in APA, MLA or Chicago style, and keep a record a reader can check, with the exact passage marked.

## Tools: Web Highlighter Tools and Extensions
- [Section overview](https://awesomehighlighter.com/tools/): Independent comparisons of web highlighter tools: browser extensions, bookmarklets, text fragment links, annotation and read-later apps. No affiliate links.
- [Browser Highlighter Extensions Compared](https://awesomehighlighter.com/tools/browser-highlighter-extensions/): What a good web highlighter extension must do, how the well-known ones compare on privacy, export and sync, and when you should not install one at all.
- [Text Fragment Links Explained](https://awesomehighlighter.com/tools/text-fragment-links-explained/): How text fragment links (#:~:text=) find and highlight a passage: the syntax with prefix, suffix and ranges, browser support, privacy and known limits.
- [What Is a Bookmarklet and Is It Safe?](https://awesomehighlighter.com/tools/bookmarklets-explained/): A bookmarklet is a bookmark that runs a small script on the page you are viewing. How they work, how to install one, and how to read one before you trust it.
- [Web Annotation and Read-Later Apps](https://awesomehighlighter.com/tools/annotation-and-read-later-apps/): The difference between annotation tools and read-later apps, what each does with your highlights, how they export to notes, and how to pick one for your work.
- [What AI Text Detectors Can and Cannot Tell You](https://awesomehighlighter.com/tools/what-ai-text-detectors-can-tell-you/): A plain explanation of how AI text detectors work, why their scores are probabilities, where research shows they fail, and how to use a result fairly.

## Who writes this
- [Nora Feld, editor](https://awesomehighlighter.com/about/editor/): Who edits Awesome Highlighter: Nora Feld's background in research skills and reading software, how she tests every guide, and how to reach her.
- [About the site](https://awesomehighlighter.com/about/): Who runs awesomehighlighter.com, how it is edited and funded, what it stores (nothing), and how it relates to the original 2008 tool of the same name.
- [Contact the editor](https://awesomehighlighter.com/contact/)

## Optional
- [History, 2008 to 2026](https://awesomehighlighter.com/history/): How a small free tool for highlighting web pages became a classroom favourite, why it disappeared, and what the 2026 relaunch keeps and changes.
- [Shared highlights archive](https://awesomehighlighter.com/highlights/archive/): The old Awesome Highlighter saved highlighted copies of pages at /page/display/ addresses. They are gone; here is what we know about the best known ones.
- [Privacy](https://awesomehighlighter.com/privacy/)
- [Terms](https://awesomehighlighter.com/terms/)