Why no highlights found from your Highlight Text tool?

Our Highlight Text tool draws rectangles as page content for maximum compatibility. To export those, you'd need to inspect page content streams, not the /Annot dictionary. Use this tool for highlights created in Acrobat / Preview / Foxit.

Is the output Markdown?

Yes — it uses Markdown headings (## Page N) and list items. Open it in any text editor or Markdown viewer.

Export Highlights as Text

Pull every Highlight annotation out of a PDF and write them as a plain-text list — page, location, author, and any attached comment.

Your files never leave your browser. All processing happens on your device — nothing is uploaded.

1. Upload your file

Drop a PDF file here

or click to browse

How does the Export Highlights as Text work?

Extract every Highlight annotation from a PDF and write a plain-text summary, one line per highlight, grouped by page. Each line shows the author plus any comment attached to the highlight (Adobe Reader and Preview let users add a popup comment to a highlight; this exposes it). Useful for review summaries, study notes from highlighted PDFs, or extracting "key passages" from a marked-up document. Limitation: this v1 does not extract the underlying text the highlight covers — only the rect coords and any author-added comment. Underlying-text extraction requires text-position introspection and is on the roadmap.

🔒 Security & Privacy

All processing happens on your device. Your files never leave your browser, never touch our servers, and are not stored anywhere. Close the tab and the file is gone.

📱 Use it on any device

Works in any modern browser — Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone, Android, and tablets. No installation, no app to download. Just open the page and start.

⚡ Quick & easy

Drag, drop, click. Most files process in seconds, not minutes. No watermarks added to your output, no per-day limits, and the tool always shows the result before asking you to download.

🎁 Always free, no signup

Free to use, every time. No account creation, no email required, no “trial” that converts to a paid plan. We make money from ads so you don’t have to pay.

Frequently asked

Not yet — only the highlight's author and any popup comment. Extracting the underlying text requires intersecting each highlight rect with the page's text content and is on the roadmap.