Does anyone have experience of writing notes on highlight anchors?

Kristin · 2025-08-01T01:17:20+00:00

There was an error rendering this rich post.

I am having a lot of confusion about notes vs highlights. Obviously the highlights and notes both end up in a notebook, and there have been various threads about how they should be separate or how to separate them, etc.

That said, is there a way to combine notes and highlights? For example, in a text I take a note, and a note appears in the notebook. Then I highlight a word from that sentence, or highlight the sentence, which then creates another note in the notebook with the highlighter color and just a random word as an anchor (the anchor is the highlighted word).

However, under it is a place to take notes. So instead of having two notes, one is the note, and one is the highlight, is it possible to just write my notes on the highlight anchor? Or does that cause problems?

Also, if I export the notes I have heard that highlights are not included. Would the export then not include notes which are anchored to highlights?

Any clarity about this would be appreciated.

Find more posts tagged with

Highlights

Desktop App

Accepted answers

All comments

Ryland Brown

If I understand correctly, you can make notes on your highlights.

When creating a note, you have the option of having a highlight and/or note icon. You can also choose to have neither. The portion that is highlighted is your anchor and the highlight or anchor shows up in your resource when visual filters are on in the resource. You can also add multiple anchors to a highlight. Below is an example of how I use a note icon for multiple anchors with information in the note. If I chose a highlighter instead of a note icon, all my anchors would show up with that highlighter.

Kristin

Hi @Ryland Brown, thank you for clarifying this and for the screenshot. In Accordance notes and highlights are fundamentally two different things, so the way Logos combines them and highlights show up in my "note"book has been super confusing.

Normally I have a note on a verse (not a word), but then I have a word which is highlighted. So for example, if I have a note which has an anchor of Gen 1:1, it creates a note. Then I go an highlight the word "beginning" and now that word is highlighted and it created a new note in the notebook, which again, is super disorienting since it is not a note but a highlight.

Since I still find it a little confusing, I will list out my understanding:
1) If I create a note it creates an anchor, but then if I highlight a word in that verse, it will create a new "note" of a highlight and there is nothing to do about it.

2) If, by contrast, I highlight the word first, I can then take notes on that highlight note, but then if I add any other anchors (such as Gen 1:1 in addition to "beginning" then the whole verse will become highlighted as opposed to just that one word.

3) There is no way for highlights to auto-save to a "highlight notebook" as opposed to my notebook of notes.

Is this all correct?

NichtnurBibelleser

1 is my understanding, too.

3 On mobile, you can choose your default notebook (see here). If you highlight anything, it creates a ´Note´ in this default notebook.

It was mentioned in the forum, but I don't have first hand experience with this:

You can assign highlights to notebooks at the palette level

Once I asked:

Is there a possibility to gather all Highlights scattered and kind of bulk-edit them, i.e. move them to that one single "Highlights notebook"?

Here's the answer, which was helpful for me.

Michelle

Hi @Kristin ,

Not sure if this would help on Note + Highlight on same verse?
Yellow arrow : Notes' icon

Blue arrow : Highlighter's styles

Kristin

Hi @NichtnurBibelleser, thank you for the links. I took a look at them, and oddly it appears that setting is only on the mobile version and not within the computer settings. In any case, I have already created a "highlights" notebook and placed my highlights there. However, then whenever I created a new note and used a different notebook, the highlight would then go to that notebook and I would have to manually move them to the highlight file. This was so time consuming I finally stopped moving them. Likewise, if I create a highlight and have the "highlight" notebook open, then if I create a note that note goes into the highlight notebook and I need to actively move it.

Also, I am not sure if it is different on mobile. It might be, but I noticed that there is a box for Notizbuch für Textmarker, but there is not one for Notizen. So it doesn't really seem like it is is isolating highlights as much as that is what Logos is calling anything marking the text, I think. I might be missing something though.

Hi @Michelle, thank you for the screenshot. I am thinking what I am trying to accomplish isn't possible. So looking at your screenshot, is it possible to have the anchor icons on Ps 28:1, while the ONLY word highlighted on that note with a collection of anchors is only "divine"? I sort of don't think so. My understanding is that if Ps 82:1 is one of the anchors, if I add a highlight it will highlight EVERYTHING and if I want to highlight an isolated word, it needs to be segregated from that note with the anchors. I think.

So for example, in Lk 1:35 there are a few random words highlighted, yet this highlight is clogging up my notebook along with the rest of the real "notes" in the "notebook." If I try to combine them, like your screenshot, if I understand correctly, the yellow highlight would appear on the entire verse (since it is associated with that anchor) and the only way for a highlight to be on just a few words is for each word to be its own "note." Is this correct?

Bildschirmfoto 2025-08-03 um 12.47.31.png

Michelle

looking at your screenshot, is it possible to have the anchor icons on Ps 28:1, while the ONLY word highlighted on that note with a collection of anchors is only "divine"? I sort of don't think so.

Hi @Kristin , you are right, the method only applies to the whole verse ☺️

Kristin

Hi @Michelle, ok, thanks for clarifying that. I find it super weird how Logos has highlights go to the same place as notes (since "notes" and "highlights" are not the same thing and are even distinguished in Logos), but I guess it is ok. I don't generally highlight much in the Bible, so I guess periodically I will just manually move the highlights to a highlight notebook.

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1375922#Comment_1375922

Notes and highlights are two variations of the same thing an annotation. They are both more similar than we might think. As users we think purely in terms of function

Annotations, both notes and highlights can :

be ‘anchored’ to a verse, or text selection
have user created text associated with the annotation.
Both can have a highlight style associated with them. The difference is by default we don’t attach a highlighting style to a note but can do so.
Both can have a visible anchor (e.g. paper lip) appear in the surface text. By default a highlight does’t have one assigned but can do so.

Kristin

Hi @Simon’s Brother,

Ya, I agree completely with those similarities. I guess the fundamental distinction though (and why they have two different words), is because a highlight is fundamentally just acknowledging another person's work, while a note is intended for user created content. I think the best analogy I can think of is a regular paper Bible compared to a wide-margin Bible. The whole reason why they came out with wide margin Bibles is because the need for person to create a note is unique from the need of underlining or highlighting a word or verse.

So I agree they have some similarities, but they also have some extreme differences, with one being "my work" and the other not being my work, but rather just drawing attention to somebody else's work.

Also, to be clear, I can appreciate why highlights are in a notebook at all, and I can see advantages to that. It just seems like whenever I create a notebook, for example "Luke class" or whatever, that the highlights I make would auto save to a shadow notebook of "Luke class highlights" so that everything is saved, but the actual notebook of notes is kept clean.

How it is now, however, when I am reading through my notes I often see a random word which is in my notebook, but it is just a word and is super unhelpful out of context. to see the highlight in the text as a highlight is helpful, but to see a "highlight" of a text separate from the text is not helpful and clogs the notebook.

Then to make everything worse, not only do these highlights clog my notebook, but then when I went to access them from the text there is no way to do it. Unlike a note anchor, I can't click on a highlighted word and no where the highlight is from. Right now I went to a verse and one by one turned off all my highlights and notes and no matter what I did, this random green highlighted word won't unhighlight. So I feel like I have to manually move them all to a "highlight" folder just so I can find them, but that is just super time consuming.

Btw, regarding the example I gave, I think my only option is to delete the highlight and then re-highlight it saving it to the highlight notebook, but if there is another way to know where a highlight is stored, please let me know.

Ryland Brown

I'm not sure if this helps address one of your concerns, but you can send highlights to a specific notebook. That way they will always go to your highlight notebook or whichever your preference is.

Kristin

Hi @Ryland Brown, thank you for the screenshot. It took me a minute since I kept looking for "Dataset Highlights" but I finally figured out that list are all regarding highlight palates you have created. Is this correct?

If I understand your screenshot correctly, each palate can be set to go somewhere. So for example, if I have an extrabiblical highlight palate, I can send those highlights to always go to a specific notebook, and then if I have a biblical highlight palate, I can send those to go to a different notebook. Is this correct?

Then any time I use one palate or the other it will go to the notebook which was set for that palate, even though my notebook for notes is a different notebook. Is this all correct?

Ryland Brown

@Kristin That's correct. Sometimes when I'm working on a project, I'll send all my notes and highlights to a notebook that I have for temporary notes and eventually send them to whatever notebook they'll generally stay at permanently. I have my highlighting set to send notes to the temporary notebook so they are all in one place while I'm working on that project. When I'm done, I'll move them to a notebook after I tag them with keyword or keywords. Even though it is not visually in the same place, like a notebook, the tags act like a notebook for me.

Kristin

Hi @Ryland Brown, great!! This will help a lot! I currently only have two highlight palates (the default and one I made), but I will create some and send them to specific places. That will for sure help. Thank you.

What you said abut tagging highlights caught my attention as I didn't know that was possible. It took me a while to get into tags, but now that I have started using them more I really find them helpful. Thank you again for the clarification and screenshots.

Dave Hooton

@Kristin

Just reading quickly on your issues with Highlights I'll try to provide some additional comments:

I think you understand that you can set the Notebook from the Palette in the Highlighting tool
- each palette can have its own Notebook and that applies to all the highlight styles in that palette
- if you want a different Notebook for some styles just create a new palette
When you create a Highlight you will see a popup at the bottom of the Highlighting tool
- it will appear for about 30 seconds
The Notes tool will open when you click as indicated.
You then attach a (unique) Note Icon to the highlight
- when clicked in the resource it will open the Notes tool.

PS. Add some tags to your posts, especially Desktop App as I would not normally have seen this one.

Kristin

Hi @Dave Hooton, thank you for your help, and ya, I understand about the different palettes going to different notebooks as of a few hours ago. So I think that will be really helpful going forward.

I thus created a few new notebooks of stuff like "extrabiblical highlights" and such, and I created a new palette to go to that notebook, but then it occurred to me that the highlights I have which belong there need to be changed to a different highlight palette. I figured it sounded sort of like a pain but worth it, so I opened an extrabiblical book and deleted the yellow highlight and then tried to re-highlight it with yellow from the new extrabiblical palette, which first did nothing.

I first couldn't delete the highlight, then after I finally did it wouldn't highlight. After a few tries it did, but then Logos crashed (which it never does). So then I did it again with another highlight with a similar situation, and Logos crashed 4x and then I stopped messing with the highlights.

So given all this, it seems like highlights which I create going forward I can create with the correct palette, but highlights I have already made should be left alone and not moved to a different palette. Is this correct?

If that is not correct, what is the best way to move a highlight to a new palette? Is just deleting it and then re-adding it from the different yellow the best way? I am questioning it after it kept crashing.

Thank you for your help.

Dave Hooton

@Kristin So given all this, it seems like highlights which I create going forward I can create with the correct palette, but highlights I have already made should be left alone and not moved to a different palette. Is this correct?

No. They can be moved if you choose Move on the style in the old palette i.e. right-click the style and select Move

Then select the new palette. But it won't change the Notebook they are in, even though the Default Notebook for the palette is different.

You can locate the highlights with a query like highlight:"Test Palette/Red Underline" (if I already moved them to that palette). And this is where you have to be inventive e.g. 3 highlights are in Genesis in the ESV so filter the Notes tool with Notebook: Old One > type: Highlights > Book: ESV > Bible Book: Genesis. You might be able to pick the palette from the icon in the Note header, but user-defined styles only have one icon. If you can select multiple notes that way then you can change the Notebook in one go.

Kristin

Hi @Dave Hooton, Thank you for clarifying this. If I understand correctly I should not delete and re-create highlights. Rather for each highlight I should move it to the new palette. Then after I move it I will then need to manually move it to the new folder.

For new highlights they will auto-save to the new folder, but all highlights I currently have need to be manually moved.

Thank you again for your help. It is going to be a major improvement for highlights to not be in the same place as my notes.