Highlighter facts for kids

A highlighter is a special pen. It helps you make important words or sentences stand out. Highlighters use bright, see-through colors. This makes it easy to find key information later. Most highlighters are a bright yellow color. This yellow comes from a special chemical called pyranine. Other colors use different chemicals, like rhodamines.

The Story of Highlighters

A highlighter is like a marker pen. But instead of dark ink, it has bright, see-through ink. Dr. Frank Honn invented the first highlighter. This happened in 1962. It was made by the Carter's Ink Company. They called it the "Hi-Liter." Today, a company called Avery Dennison owns the Hi-Liter brand. They bought Carter's in 1975.

Different Kinds of Highlighters

A yellow Stabilo-brand highlighter pen

Highlighters come in many bright colors. These colors often glow under a special "black light." Yellow is the most common color. But you can also find highlighters in orange, red, pink, purple, blue, and green. Some yellow highlighters might look a bit greenish. Yellow is great for highlighting things you want to photocopy. It usually won't make a shadow on the copy.

Highlighters come in many shapes and styles. Some have a tip that can go in and out. Others have an eraser on one end. A "trilighter" is a triangle-shaped pen. It has a different color tip on each corner. Some highlighters can even stack on top of each other. There are also highlighters that feel like a wax crayon.

Dry Highlighters

"Dry highlighters" use a thin strip of tape. This tape is like the tape used for correcting mistakes. You roll it over the text. Unlike regular highlighters, these are easy to erase. They are different from "dry mark highlighters." Those are good for books with thin pages.

Gel Highlighters

"Gel highlighters" have a gel stick inside. This gel does not bleed through paper. It also doesn't dry out in the pen. This means your gel highlighter will last a long time.

Liquid Highlighters

"Liquid highlighters" are also available. They put more ink on the page. This makes the words stand out even more. The extra ink also helps the highlighting last longer. It resists fading over time.

Pastel Highlighters

"Pastel highlighters" use softer, pastel colors. They are not as bright as the fluorescent ones.

Highlighting on Computers

Errors marked in computer code, in the style of a highlighter pen

Some computer programs can highlight text. This is like using a highlighter pen on your screen. For example, old computers like the Commodore 128 could show text in a special way. This made it look highlighted.

Programs that help you write computer code often use highlighting. This is called "syntax highlighting." It uses bright or soft backgrounds to make parts of the code easier to read. Some tools for web browsers also let you highlight text on websites. You can even highlight parts of online PDF files.

See also

• Emphasis (typography)
• Sanitization (classified information)—using black "highlighter" to hide secret information.