Highlights, Notes, and Review

Mark the passages worth keeping, write what you thought next to them, and let Bindle bring a few back each day so they stick. Highlights work the same in articles, video transcripts, and books, and they sync to every device in your circle.

Highlight a Passage

Select some text in the reader. A bar floats over the page with four colors and Add Note.

• Choose a color (Yellow, Green, Blue, or Pink) to highlight the selection.
• Choose Add Note to highlight it in yellow and write a note on it straight away.

A highlight can run across paragraphs. Two highlights can overlap; both are drawn.

Notes

A note belongs to a highlight. Add one from the selection bar (Add Note), from a highlight's quick menu (Add Note or Edit Note), or in the highlight editor.

A highlight with a note shows a small note marker just after its last word, in a deeper shade of its color. Tap the marker to open the note. The marker is not part of the text: Listen and Speed Read never read it.

Change or Remove a Highlight

Tap a highlight to open its quick menu, where the selection bar appears:

Tap anywhere else, make a new selection, or press Escape to close the menu.

The Highlight Editor

The editor shows the quote, a Color choice, a Note field ("Add a note"), and Delete Highlight. Choose Done to keep your changes, or Cancel. A note can be up to about 4,000 characters.¹

Deleting a highlight removes it and its note on every device.

Highlights on Every Device

Each of your devices makes its own copy of an article, and the copies can differ a little. So a highlight remembers its words (and a few words on either side), not just a position. Each device finds those words in its own copy and draws the highlight there, so a highlight made on your iPhone shows up in the right place on your Mac.

If a device's copy does not have the words at all, the highlight is kept and marked "Not in this copy". Its quote and note still show in the link's details.

Search finds links by the words of their highlights and notes too (see Search and Ask).

When you open the reader from an answer in Ask, the cited passage shows a Save as Highlight button that highlights it in one tap.

Highlights in Details

A link's details list its highlights below its note, under "Highlights" with a count, in the order they appear in the article. Each shows its color, quote, and note. Highlights not in this copy come last.

• Tap a highlight to open the reader right at it (a book opens the right chapter). With no copy on this device, the tap opens the editor instead.
• Touch and hold (or right-click) a highlight for Add Note or Edit Note, Color, Copy Quote, and Delete Highlight.

Lists show how many highlights a link has.

Highlight Review

Highlights you never look at again are soon forgotten. Highlight Review brings a few back each day, and how you grade each one decides when it comes back next. It is spaced repetition: a highlight you know well comes back less and less often.

The Card in Links

When highlights are due, a card sits at the top of the Links list (with no filter on), headed Today's Highlights. It looks like a slip of paper on a short stack, with one slip showing under it for each more highlight. It shows how many are waiting ("1 of 5") and the first quote, with the title of the article it came from. Choose it, or Review, to start, or choose Not Now (the × in its corner) to hide it until tomorrow.

Grading

The review shows the day's highlights as a stack of cards. Each card shows the quote, the words around it, your note, and the article or book it came from. Tap the title to open the reader at the highlight; close the reader to come back to the review.

Swipe the front card to grade it:

While you drag, a label names the grade and when the highlight would return. Let go short and the card springs back. Never needs a longer drag than the others, so a sagging swipe does not retire a highlight by mistake.

You can also use the bar under the card, laid out the way the swipes go: Soon and Keep side by side, Later above, and Never below. Each button says when the highlight would come back, such as "1 day", "3 days", or "1 week". The More menu has Open in Article and Never Show Again.

The first time you grade a highlight, Soon brings it back in 1 day, Keep in 3, and Later in 7. After that, the time grows with each Keep, grows faster with Later, and shrinks with Soon.

When you are done, Bindle says "That's today's highlights."

Keys

The letters work on a phone keyboard case with no arrow keys.

Review Settings

In Settings > Reading > Highlight Review:

Turning on the reminder asks to send notifications. The reminder comes once a day, at your time, only when highlights are waiting. Tap it to open the review.

Your grades and each highlight's schedule sync, so a highlight you grade on one device is not due on the others. How many a day, Not Now, and the reminder belong to each device.