Highlights: PDF Reader & Notes

Edit Research Documents/Books

FreeOffers In-App Purchases

2023.3.3for iPhone, iPad and more

8.9

232 Ratings

Jonas Myren Ribe

Developer

8.4 MB

Size

Nov 9, 2023

Update Date

Productivity

About Highlights: PDF Reader & Notes

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

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

*** "App of the Day" - App Store, US ***

USE HIGHLIGHTS FOR FREE
Highlights is a fast and lightweight PDF reader (under 10MB) packed with features to help you do your best 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 PDF documents from anywhere
• Browse files using the familiar document browser
• Open PDFs in Single Page or Two Page scroll mode
• Double tap to Smart Zoom in on a paragraph or figure
• Scrub smoothly to the desired page
• Search the entire document in an instant
• Navigate using any connected keyboard or mouse

STORE YOUR FILES WHERE YOU WANT
• Full support for "Open In Place" lets you make edits to the file where it is
• Access your files from iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive or Box using the document browser
• Or keep them privately on device only

HIGHLIGHT AND ANNOTATE FASTER
• Select text with your finger, Apple Pencil or mouse pointer
• Highlight, underline, strikethrough text and make image selections
• Add comments to annotations or as individual sticky notes
• Annotate with fewer taps using context aware popovers
• 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 tap

SMART COPY
Copy annotations to the desired format with one tap:
• 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 tap 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

MUCH MORE
• Dark mode
• Multi-window support on iPadOS
• Keyboard shortcuts and navigation
• Support for system Copy and Undo gestures
• Alternative app icons
• Custom accent colors
• Apple Pencil double-tap gestures
• Power annotation tools

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: highlightsapp.net/privacy
Terms: highlightsapp.net/terms

What's New in the Latest Version 2023.3.3

Last updated on Nov 9, 2023

Old Versions

Major speed improvements in celebration of the release of macOS Sonoma:
- 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 writing of backup files when running OCR
- Faster opening of files

Minor improvements:
- Double tap to zoom now also works for pointing devices
- Fewer ways to accidentally toggle the visibility of the top and bottom bars
- Fixed a crash related to updating thumbnails
- Improved thread safety
- Fixed an issue with text selections sometimes appearing without a highlight color when using the Apple Pencil
- Thumbnails view now reflect changes to the document live
- Use Enter key as a keyboard shortcut to go to the next result when searching
- Switching between viewing your notes and PDF no longer resets the zoom level
- Improved animation for note deletions
- Fixed a crash related to generating thumbnails for a small subset of PDF pages
- Fixed a crash related to tracking of user setting updates
- Remove null characters if present in the text of markup annotations
- Improved jumping between search results on devices running iOS 15 or earlier
- Improved Smart Copy when getting text of markup annotations
- Improved handling of highlights:// links

Version History

2023.3.3

Nov 9, 2023

2023.3.2

Nov 3, 2023

Major speed improvements in celebration of the release of macOS Sonoma:
- 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 writing of backup files when running OCR
- Faster opening of files

Minor improvements:
- Fixed a crash related to updating thumbnails
- Improved thread safety
- Fixed an issue with text selections sometimes appearing without a highlight color when using the Apple Pencil
- Thumbnails view now reflect changes to the document live
- Use Enter key as a keyboard shortcut to go to the next result when searching
- Switching between viewing your notes and PDF no longer resets the zoom level
- Improved animation for note deletions
- Fixed a crash related to generating thumbnails for a small subset of PDF pages
- Fixed a crash related to tracking of user setting updates
- Remove null characters if present in the text of markup annotations
- Improved jumping between search results on devices running iOS 15 or earlier
- Improved Smart Copy when getting text of markup annotations
- Improved handling of highlights:// links

2023.3.1

Oct 17, 2023

Major speed improvements in celebration of the release of macOS Sonoma:
- 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 writing of backup files when running OCR
- Faster opening of files

Minor improvements:
- Fixed an issue with text selections sometimes appearing without a highlight color when using the Apple Pencil
- Thumbnails view now reflect changes to the document live
- Use Enter key as a keyboard shortcut to go to the next result when searching
- Switching between viewing your notes and PDF no longer resets the zoom level
- Improved animation for note deletions
- Fixed a crash related to generating thumbnails for a small subset of PDF pages
- Fixed a crash related to tracking of user setting updates
- Remove null characters if present in the text of markup annotations
- Improved jumping between search results on devices running iOS 15 or earlier
- Improved Smart Copy when getting text of markup annotations
- Improved handling of highlights:// links

2023.3

Oct 11, 2023

Major speed improvements in celebration of the release of macOS Sonoma:
- 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 writing of backup files when running OCR
- Faster opening of files

Minor improvements:
- Thumbnails view now reflect changes to the document live
- Use Enter key as a keyboard shortcut to go to the next result when searching
- Switching between viewing your notes and PDF no longer resets the zoom level
- Improved animation for note deletions
- Fixed a crash related to generating thumbnails for a small subset of PDF pages
- Fixed a crash related to tracking of user setting updates
- Remove null characters if present in the text of markup annotations
- Improved jumping between search results on devices running iOS 15 or earlier
- Improved Smart Copy when getting text of markup annotations
- Improved handling of highlights:// links

2023.2

Sep 14, 2023

The big iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 update with support for widgets and shortcuts everywhere! Scan documents faster by launching directly into document scanner from widgets on your Home Screen, Lock Screen and even StandBy. You can also run the Scan & OCR Document shortcut from the Shortcuts app, through Spotlight search or by longpressing the Highlights app icon. Actions in the Shortcuts app can also be added to the Home Screen by longpressing them. If that's not enough, you can also ask Siri to "Scan using Highlights", "Open Highlights scanner" or similar phrases.

Lock Screen widgets blend seamlessly with your wallpaper and is the fastest way to scan documents on the go. On the iPad, they can be configured to appear on the left side in landscape mode or under the time in portrait mode similar to the iPhone. On the Home Screen and in Spotlight search results the action will match the orange accent color of Highlights.

The document scanner will automatically perform OCR to make the PDFs searchable after scanning. The OCR is done on device. To disable OCR turn off "OCR After Scan" in Advanced Settings inside Highlights.

2023.1.3

Sep 4, 2023

Highlights can now scan and OCR documents on device and it's available to everyone for free!
- Scan documents to searchable PDF files using the camera on your iPhone or iPad
- Smart OCR: Live Text let’s you select text in PDFs without a text layer on the fly. Now Highlights will detect and automatically embed the Live Text in the background. PDFs without a text layer will therefore be automatically OCR'd on device when needed without you having to tap a button. Smart!
- You can also manually OCR any document in the document browser from the action menu

These features require iOS/iPadOS 16 or later. Smart OCR works with English, Chinese, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Ukrainian text on hardware that supports Live Text.

Minor improvements:
- Resolved a bug causing the 2023.1 version to crash on launch on devices running iOS 13
- Devices without hardware support for Live Text now hide the unsupported Scan and OCR actions
- Documents now show a spin indicator in the document browser while being processed for OCR
- Fixed a bug where comments on annotations were not updated when the annotation popover was hidden instead of dismissed (e.g. when moving a sticky note or rotating a device)
- Fixed a bug where in rare cases the document would be unnecessary reloaded while running AutoSave
- Fixed a bug where null characters in annotation comments could stop annotation extraction
- Added an option for Pro users to never be prompted for metadata fetches (Advanced Settings > Fetch Metadata > "Manual")

2023.1.2

Aug 28, 2023

2023.1.1

Aug 4, 2023

2023.1

Aug 3, 2023

2022.6.3

Dec 21, 2022

The big iPadOS 16 update! A whole new design optimized for Stage Manager and a desktop-class experience with powerful ways to do even more:
- Customizable toolbars: The center area of the toolbar is fully customizable including functionality previously only available using keyboard commands. Select "Customize Toolbar" from the bottom of the More menu to make it your own.
- Document menu: The document title is always visible in the toolbar and when selected brings up the document menu with easy access to file operations including duplicate, move, rename, print and export actions.
- Thumbnail sidebar: The bottom bar is gone to free up space for more content and replaced by a collapsable sidebar with larger thumbnails similar to on the Mac.
- The segmented control in the center of the toolbar to control the View Mode has been replaced by a sleek button at the trailing end of the toolbar, giving space for customizable items at the center. Tap it for fast switching or long press to see the view options.
- Search is now inline
- A new export menu for fewer taps and a sleeker look
- Settings is now available from the top of the More menu at all times
- New edit menus and text selection popovers with support for light and dark mode
- Improved support for keyboard/pointer navigation
- Added a Help menu inside the More menu
- Lots of minor UI tweaks

In iPadOS 16 you can also collaborate on PDF documents via iCloud links. Just share the document and select Collaborate instead of Send Copy. The documents show up in the new Shared-tab in the document browser. Tapping on the "Shared with You"-button below the document in the document browser will take you directly to the conversation where the document was shared in Messages or Mail.

Minor improvements:
- Added some missing accessibility labels
- The thumbnail selection now only changes in the currently selected window when changing the page with multiple Highlights windows open
- Removed keyboard shortcut for toggling the sidebar on pre iOS 16 releases
- Fixed a crash caused by popover presentation when quickly switching between annotations

2022.6.2

Oct 31, 2022

2022.6.1

Oct 23, 2022

The big iPadOS 16 update! A whole new design optimized for Stage Manager and a desktop-class experience with powerful ways to do even more:
- Customizable toolbars: The center area of the toolbar is fully customizable including functionality previously only available using keyboard commands. Select "Customize Toolbar" from the bottom of the More menu to make it your own.
- Document menu: The document title is always visible in the toolbar and when selected brings up the document menu with easy access to file operations including duplicate, move, rename, print and export actions.
- Thumbnail sidebar: The bottom bar is gone to free up space for more content and replaced by a collapsable sidebar with larger thumbnails similar to on the Mac.
- The segmented control in the center of the toolbar to control the View Mode has been replaced by a sleek button at the trailing end of the toolbar, giving space for customizable items at the center. Tap it for fast switching or long press to see the view options.
- Search is now inline
- A new export menu for fewer taps and a sleeker look
- Settings is now available from the top of the More menu at all times
- New edit menus and text selection popovers with support for light and dark mode
- Improved support for keyboard/pointer navigation
- Lots of minor UI tweaks

In iPadOS 16 you can also collaborate on PDF documents via iCloud links. Just share the document and select Collaborate instead of Send Copy. The documents show up in the new Shared-tab in the document browser. Tapping on the "Shared with You"-button below the document in the document browser will take you directly to the conversation where the document was shared in Messages or Mail.

Minor improvement:
- Removed keyboard shortcut for toggling the sidebar on pre iOS 16 releases

2022.6

Oct 23, 2022

The big iPadOS 16 update! A whole new design optimized for Stage Manager and a desktop-class experience with powerful ways to do even more:
- Customizable toolbars: The center area of the toolbar is fully customizable including functionality previously only available using keyboard commands. Select "Customize Toolbar" from the bottom of the More menu to make it your own.
- Document menu: The document title is always visible in the toolbar and when selected brings up the document menu with easy access to file operations including duplicate, move, rename, print and export actions.
- Thumbnail sidebar: The bottom bar is gone to free up space for more content and replaced by a collapsable sidebar with larger thumbnails similar to on the Mac.
- The segmented control in the center of the toolbar to control the View Mode has been replaced by a sleek button at the trailing end of the toolbar, giving space for customizable items at the center. Tap it for fast switching or long press to see the view options.
- Search is now inline
- A new export menu for fewer taps and a sleeker look
- Settings is now available from the top of the More menu at all times
- New edit menus and text selection popovers with support for light and dark mode
- Improved support for keyboard/pointer navigation
- Lots of minor UI tweaks

In iPadOS 16 you can also collaborate on PDF documents via iCloud links. Just share the document and select Collaborate instead of Send Copy. The documents show up in the new Shared-tab in the document browser. Tapping on the "Shared with You"-button below the document in the document browser will take you directly to the conversation where the document was shared in Messages or Mail.

2022.5.2

Oct 7, 2022

The big iOS 16 update! A whole new design to bring even more functionality within reach:
- A new bottom toolbar with an improved share menu, segmented control for fast switching between your PDF and Notes and a whole new inline search experience.
- A new top toolbar showing the document name and giving you access to file functions directly, in addition to a sleeker More-menu exposing more functionality than ever before
- New text selection popover with support for light and dark mode
- Lots of minor UI tweaks

In iOS 16 you can also collaborate on PDF documents via iCloud links. Just share the document and select Collaborate instead of Send Copy. The documents show up in the new Shared-tab in the document browser. Tapping on the "Shared with You"-button below the document in the document browser will take you directly to the conversation where the document was shared in Messages or Mail.

Minor improvements:
- Fixed a bug where images would not load correctly in notes when the notes view is hidden
- Fixed a crash where the metadata lookup popover on iPads would present before the navigation toolbar was visible
- Smoother transitions with matching window background colors to the light/dark appearance when collapsing or showing views
- The duplicate file action from the document menu now creates a new document and opens it without having to give it a new name
- Fixed a bug where making a new text selection using touch could change slightly after lifting your finger
- Fixed a bug where text selection actions would disappear from the popover when using touch
- Improved switching between the text selection popover for touch and pointer/Apple Pencil on iOS 16

2022.5.1

Sep 21, 2022

2022.5

Sep 9, 2022

2022.4.1

Aug 10, 2022

Minor improvements to popover presentation including automatically hiding popovers when scrolling using the pointer (trackpad or mouse wheel) on iPad

2022.4

May 7, 2022

Automatically fetch metadata for scientific articles from arXiv - the largest open-access archive with more than 2 million preprints and postprints.

2022.3.1

Apr 23, 2022

Export PDFs without including your annotations (e.g. to share the original document with a colleague or friend)

Minor improvements:
- Fixes an issue with fetching metadata for DOI-links with extended prefixes

2022.3

Apr 5, 2022

Export PDFs without including your annotations (e.g. to share the original document with a colleague or friend)

2022.2

Mar 19, 2022

Text translation right from the selection popover: just select text and tap the globe icon to try it!

The feature requires iOS/iPadOS 15 and works with the system supported languages: Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin - China mainland), Chinese (Mandarin - Taiwan), English (US), English (UK), French (France), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish (Spain).

2022.1

Jan 19, 2022

New Table of Contents view for navigating books and other large PDFs.

Other Improvements:
- Placeholder image and text shown when notes are empty
- Keyboard navigation using arrow keys on iOS 15 works again
- Trying to open search while search is open in compact layouts no longer crashes

2021.2.3

Dec 4, 2021

Support for iOS 15 with Quick Note and a new keyboard shortcuts menu on iPad, text input via Live Text and flexible half height sheets for improved search and document settings on iPhone.

Other improvements:
- Optimized interface for the new iPad Mini (2021)
- Better support for larger text sizes
- No longer crashes when attempting to open corrupt PDF files

2021.2.2

Oct 27, 2021

2021.2.1

Sep 20, 2021

Support for iOS 15 with Quick Note and a new keyboard shortcuts menu on iPad, text input via Live Text and flexible half height sheets for improved search and document settings on iPhone.

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