Highlighting while you read

Highlighting is how you turn reading into raw material. Instead of a passage disappearing the moment you close the tab, it lands in your workspace as something you can find, reuse, and build on.

Highlight anything you read

Open anything in Eden's reader and select text to highlight it. The reader works across the things you save:

• Saved articles and web pages
• Newsletters
• PDFs
• YouTube transcripts
• Social posts and threads

The gesture is the same everywhere. Select the text, and the highlight is saved.

Pick a color once

When you select text, the little toolbar shows four colors. Click one and the highlight is saved in that color.

That pick sticks. Every highlight you make after it uses the same color, until you pick a different one. The color you're on is ringed in the toolbar, so you can always see which one is next.

It follows your account, not the device. Pick amber on your laptop and the next highlight you make on your phone is amber too. It also carries to the places that don't show a color picker at all, like the Highlight button in a PDF and the passage button while a transcript plays.

To change the color of a highlight you already made, click it and pick a different swatch. That becomes your new default as well.

What a highlight becomes

Each highlight is a first-class item, not a note buried inside a document. That means it gets three things automatically:

• It's searchable. Highlights show up in Library search alongside everything else you've saved, so you can find a line by what it says.
• It can become a quote card. Place a highlight on any board and it renders as an editorial quote card: the passage laid out with its source attribution, ready to sit in a swipe file or a project.
• It's connected to its source. Eden links the highlight back to the article, PDF, or post it came from, so you can always jump to the original. Read more in connecting items.

Put a highlight straight on a board

You don't have to leave the reader to file a highlight. Click one you've already made and the small toolbar that appears has Add to board alongside the colors, note, and remove options. On mobile, tap the highlight and the edit sheet has the same Add to board action.

Picking a board places the highlight's quote card there. It's the same card you'd get from the Highlights pane, so it stays connected to its source and nothing is duplicated. You can also create a new board from the picker and land the highlight in it in one step.

Highlights made before this shipped may not have a card yet. Those won't offer the action.

Boost a highlight

A highlight isn't just something you saved. It's a starting point. Boost a highlight to develop the idea further, mine post ideas from it, or pressure-test the thinking behind it. A single line you liked can turn into an outline, a hook, or a counterargument in one step.

One home for every highlight

Highlights you make in Eden's reader live in the same place as the ones you import from Readwise and Kindle. They all collect in the Highlights pane, so your own reading and your imported swipe file sit side by side, searchable together.