Research Web Highlighter
Free online tool

Online text highlighter with notes you can export

Paste any text, highlight it in four colors, add a note to any passage, and export everything as Markdown. It all runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.

No sign-up4 colorsNotesMarkdown export
Select text, then pick a color. Or press 1–4. Click a highlight to add a note.

How to highlight text online

Step 1

Paste your text

Open “Paste text” and drop in an article, a chapter, lecture notes or a transcript. Paragraphs are kept.

Step 2

Highlight and annotate

Select a passage and pick yellow, green, blue or pink. Click any highlight to change its color or write a note.

Step 3

Export to Markdown

Copy or download your highlights with notes, grouped by color, ready for Notion, Obsidian or a plain doc.

Chrome extension

Do the same on any website

Research Web Highlighter brings this to every page you read in Chrome, without copy-pasting.

  • Highlights stay on the page when you come back
  • A side panel lists every highlight on the current page
  • Sticky notes pinned next to the paragraph they belong to
  • Your data stays in your browser, with export to Markdown, CSV or JSON
Add to Chrome, it's free

Questions

Is my text uploaded anywhere?

No. The highlighter runs entirely in your browser. Your text and notes are kept only in this browser's local storage so you don't lose them on reload.

Is it free?

Yes. The online highlighter is free with no sign-up and no limits.

Can I highlight a webpage directly instead of pasting text?

Yes, with the Research Web Highlighter extension for Chrome. It highlights text on any website, keeps highlights on the page and saves them to a library.

What does the Markdown export look like?

Each highlight becomes a quote, grouped under its color, with your note below it. You can paste it straight into Notion, Obsidian or any Markdown editor.