Highlights: PDF Reader & Notes 4+

Research: Extract,Edit,Export

Jonas Myren Ribe

    • 4.6 • 192 Ratings
    • Free
    • Offers In-App Purchases

Description

The PDF reader optimized for research on Mac, iPad & iPhone. Turn your annotations into powerful notes and export them anywhere, so you can focus on the bigger picture.

"It’s the novel approach to PDF annotation that makes this app a cut above the rest"- TapSmart.com

"A simple and effective tool for helping you strip key information out of research PDFs." - iCreate Magazine, Issue 221

"... an app that students, academics, and anyone who does substantial amounts of PDF-based research should try" - Macstories.net

USE HIGHLIGHTS FOR FREE
Highlights is a fast and lightweight PDF reader (under 10MB) packed with features to help with your research.

Free users have access to standard PDF reader features including document browsing, reading and annotating. There are NO ADS, time limits or tracking.

READ PDF DOCUMENTS
• Open PDFs in Single Page or Two Page scroll mode
• Double-tap with two fingers to Smart Zoom in on a paragraph or figure
• Display PDFs in regular, sepia or night appearance

HIGHLIGHT AND ANNOTATE FASTER
• Annotate with fewer clicks using context aware popovers
• Highlight, underline, strikethrough text and make image selections
• Add comments to annotations or as individual sticky notes
• Default annotation colors prevents you from having to repeatedly setting the color for the same type of annotation every time

TURN ANNOTATIONS INTO NOTES
• As you markup text and images the contents are extracted and sorted into notes
• Customize the formatting and contents of your notes
• Sort the annotations chronologically or create your own color coding

EXTRACT TABLE DATA AND RECOGNIZE TEXT
• Convert images containing text or tables to actual text and tables using machine learning - letting you get to the underlying data with a single click

SMART COPY
Copy annotations to the desired format with one click:
• Text markup as text
• Image selections as images
• Tables as CSV
• Citations as BibTex

LOOKUP CITATIONS
• Highlights will fetch DOI-links and metadata
• Markup any reference and click the link icon to look it up
• If you have read the work already or have it in your reference manager library, Highlights will link you to it

EXPORT ANYWHERE
• Save or share your notes as portable files: Markdown, TextBundle, HTML, WebArchive or PDF
• Share them to your favorite notes app: Apple Notes, Bear, Craft, Evernote, DEVONThink, Keep It, MindNode, Notion, Obsidian, Roam Research or Ulysses
• Or send them to a colleague via mail. It's your notes, you decide where they go
• Customize the contents of your notes using templates

MUCH MORE
• Night and Sepia PDF appearances
• Automatically save notes as a sidecar Markdown file
• Multi-lingual text recognition
• Default annotation colors
• Integration with reference managers like Paper and Bookends
• Integration with DEVONthink

For a full list of features see: highlightsapp.net/features

HIGHLIGHTS PRO
The Highlights Pro subscription unlocks advanced features on your iPhone, iPad and Mac:
• Export options for other apps and easily editable formats
• Extract information using table and text recognition
• Customize accent colors and alternative app icons
• Power annotation tools
• Citation lookups
• Smart Copy

Highlights Pro includes a 14-day free trial. You can cancel your subscription at any time. The subscription will automatically renew unless auto-renew is turned off within 24-hour prior to the end of of the current period.

Payments will be charged to your iTunes account and your account will be charged within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period. Any unused portion of a free trial period will be forfeited when you purchase a subscription.

For more information about Highlights Pro: highlightsapp.net/pro

Privacy Policy and Terms: highlightsapp.net/privacy

What’s New

Version 2023.2.10

Speed + Sonoma! Highlights runs smoothly on macOS 14 Sonoma already, but this update brings some major performance improvements:
- Up to 5x faster conversion of image selections to images
- Up to 7x faster text recognition
- Up to 5x faster table recognition
- Up to 5x faster loading of PDF pages
- Faster opening of files

Minor improvements:
- Smoother resizing of image selections
- Existing image selections will no longer keep the previous aspect ratio when resized
- Image selections from rotated pages now grab the expected area
- Fixed an issue with Pro features potentially not being recognized on first parse
- Fixed an issue that could prevent images from appearing in notes
- Fixed an issue that could cause inactive page links
- Improved thread safety
- Fixed a memory leak
- Fixed a potential crash on launch
- Fixed a crash related to tracking of user setting updates
- Remove null characters if present in the text of markup annotations
- Improved Smart Copy when getting text of markup annotations
- Improved handling of highlights:// links

Ratings and Reviews

4.6 out of 5
192 Ratings

192 Ratings

RomanaPerveen ,

Hands down amazing app

I am amazed how perfect this app is for me as a medicine student. Lets me highlight my notes to make an amazing versatile version. I only wish the notes version was editable directly. Also kindly add APPLE PENCIL Scribble option with this this app will be unbeatable. Please consider this upgrade. Thank you !!!

Rivearevt ,

Used to love this app…keeps crashing now

I don’t know if there is something wrong with the new version, but it’s simply trash. I open a pdf, mark a few lines, keeps crashing. When I open it again, the lines aren’t marked.

It’s not just with one or two pdfs. And it behaves the same way whether it’s connected to iCloud or not. I restarted my iPad, redownloaded the app, redownloaded the pdfs, and I’m at my wits end.

2 stars because it worked okay for 2 months and let me extract text from my pdfs with Apple Pencil.

dinu2190 ,

Extraordinary app - though need some more features

I am spell bounded by this app ,no more words,some additions I thought it would be better
1.dark mode in PDF also ,right now it is available in notes only
2.editing option in notes ,like adding tables ,charts ,diagrams,highlighting in notes,changing font ,font size ,simply like a MS word features ,why the need for Evernote and other apps ,we can read and organise and edit in this app only
4.Hand writing option notes would be mind blowing
3.PDF editing option at this price would be great add on
That’s all for now ,will update if needed

Subscriptions

Highlights Pro: Export Markup
Highlights Pro: Export Markup
Convert PDF Annotations into Notes and Export
Free Trial

App Privacy

The developer, Jonas Myren Ribe, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy.

Data Not Collected

The developer does not collect any data from this app.

Privacy practices may vary based on, for example, the features you use or your age. Learn More

Supports

  • Family Sharing

    Some in‑app purchases, including subscriptions, may be shareable with your family group when Family Sharing is enabled.

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