Paste any text, list the words or phrases you care about, and each one is highlighted in its own color with a live match count. Copy the result as rich text that keeps its colors in Google Docs, Word, Gmail or Outlook, or as HTML.
Last updated:
Words and phrases to highlight
Frequent words, click to add:
Highlighted text
“Copy highlighted text” copies rich text with the colors, ready to paste into Google Docs, Word, Outlook or Gmail.
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How to use the Text Highlighter
Paste your text into the box on the left.
Type the words or phrases to highlight, one per row, or click a suggested word. Press Enter to add another row.
Pick a color for each term and set whole-word, case and word-form options.
Check the counts next to each term and in the legend.
Click Copy highlighted text and paste into your document or email, or download the HTML.
Ideas for using a text highlighter
Task
What to highlight
Tip
Studying and revision
Key terms, names, dates
Use one color per topic and paste the result into your notes.
SEO and copywriting
Target keyword and its variations
Turn on word forms to catch plurals; the count shows how often each appears.
Editing and proofreading
Overused words (just, very, really, that)
Click the frequent-word suggestions to spot repetition quickly.
Contracts and policies
Obligations: must, shall, will not, may
Keep whole-word matching on so “may” does not match “mayor”.
Teaching
Parts of speech or vocabulary words
Download the HTML file and print or share it with students.
Log and data review
ERROR, WARN, an ID or an email
Turn on case sensitive and off whole words for exact fragments.
Choosing highlight colors that stay readable
The eight colors are light pastel shades, so black text on top of them keeps strong contrast and stays readable when printed. Use warm colors (yellow, orange, coral) for the most important terms and cool colors (blue, teal, purple) for supporting ones, and avoid relying on color alone when sharing with others: the legend with each term's name and count helps readers who have difficulty telling colors apart.
How matching works
All terms are combined into one search that scans the text once from start to finish, trying longer terms before shorter ones. Spaces inside a phrase match any run of spaces or line breaks, so a phrase that wraps across lines is still found. Whole-word mode checks that the characters on either side of a match are not letters or digits, which works for accented and non-Latin alphabets too.
Frequently asked questions
How do I copy the text with the highlights kept?
Click “Copy highlighted text”. It puts rich text (HTML) on the clipboard, so pasting into Google Docs, Microsoft Word, Gmail, Outlook or most other editors keeps the background colors. Apps that only accept plain text, such as Notepad, receive the text without colors.
What happens when two terms overlap?
Longer terms are matched first. If you highlight both “carbon” and “carbon dioxide”, the phrase “carbon dioxide” gets the phrase color and is counted once for that term, while “carbon” on its own elsewhere is still highlighted in its own color.
What does “Whole words only” do?
It stops a term from matching inside a longer word. With it on, “art” highlights “art” but not “start” or “party”. Turn it off to find a term anywhere, for example a word stem or a code fragment.
Can it match different forms of a word?
Tick “Also match plural / -ing / -ed forms” to add the endings s, es, d, ed, ing and ’s to every term, so “plant” also matches “plants” and “planted”. It does not handle irregular forms like “grew” for “grow”; add those as separate terms.
Does the search ignore capital letters?
Yes by default, so “Oxygen” and “oxygen” both match. Tick “Case sensitive” when capitalisation matters, for example to find a name but not the ordinary word.
Is there a limit on how many words I can highlight?
No fixed limit. There are eight colors, and after eight terms the colors repeat; you can change any term's color by clicking a swatch.
Is my text private?
Yes. Highlighting happens in your browser. Your text and terms are saved only in this browser's local storage so they are there next time, and they are never sent to a server.
Are all the tools on FreeToolCabin tested for quality and accuracy?
Yes! Every tool on our site undergoes automated Q/A testing in real browser environments to ensure high precision, correct output, and zero errors. If you happen to spot a bug or have a suggestion, please contact us at [email protected] and our team will review it right away.