Highlighters and Pens

Now we'll move to the part of Cocoa that turns notes into study material: the highlighter pens. A pen is more than a color. Each pen has a name — Formulas, Definitions, On the Exam — and everything you mark with it gathers into a list under that name and, if you want, becomes a flashcard. This chapter covers the pens on the format bar, highlighter mode, the pen settings, and the per-folder pen sets.

What a pen is, and why the name matters

Mark a formula with the Formulas pen and two things happen: the formula is tinted on the page, and it appears in the Formulas collection with every other formula you have ever marked. Mark a term with a pen that makes cards and it becomes the front of a flashcard. So the name is the meaning; the color is only how the meaning looks.

Cocoa ships with two pens: Highlight (plain yellow, the one most apps have) and Important (red). Highlight collects but does not make cards — it marks a sentence worth re-reading. Named pens are where terms live.

The pen strip on the format bar

To the right of the picture buttons on the format bar sits the Highlighter button ① (a highlighter icon). Click it and a tray slides out to its right:

• One pen swatch ② per pen — a filled circle in the pen's color, up to nine. The pen you are holding has a ring around it.
• Remove highlight ③ (a dashed-line eraser icon) takes the highlighter off the selected words. Shortcut ⌃0.
• Pen settings ④ (a gear icon) opens the pens in Settings, where you rename pens, change colors and add new ones.

Hover the Highlighter button to read its help card: click to open the pens, then click a color to pick it up — every selection you drag gets marked until you click the button again to put the pen down.

Two ways to mark

• Select first, then apply. Select some words, then click a pen swatch. Faster: press ⌃1 to ⌃9 — the pens in the order they appear in the tray.
• Pick up a pen, then sweep. Click a swatch with nothing selected and you are in highlighter mode: every stretch of text you drag across gets that pen, one after another, until you click the Highlighter button again (or press ⌃⌘H) to put the pen down.

The same pens are in the Marks menu: Highlighter ⌃⌘H, then each pen by name with ⌃1–⌃9, then Remove Mark ⌃0.

What a mark looks like

Highlights are drawn as a translucent band of the pen's color over the words, blended into the paper, never covering the ink. A pen can also carry a treatment — a margin bracket, a dotted underline, or a ! or ? in the margin — so that nine pens are tellable apart without relying on hue. If you turn on Differentiate Without Color in System Settings › Accessibility, every pen gets a treatment automatically.

The study-card warning

If you mark a lone word with a pen that makes cards, and there is no sentence around it to blank out later, Cocoa shows an alert saying the card would be empty. Mark the term inside its sentence instead.

Pen settings (Settings › Pens)

Open Cocoa › Settings… (Command-comma) and click the Pens tab (a highlighter icon), or click Pen settings in the tray.

Each pen row ① reads, left to right:

• A color swatch, then the Name field (placeholder "Name"). Renaming a pen does not rewrite your notes: the name you see changes; the marks keep their identity.
• The Color pop-up — Yellow, Red, Green, Blue, Purple, Orange, Pink, Teal.
• The Treatment pop-up — Color only, Margin bracket, Dotted underline, ! in the margin, ? in the margin.
• The collection style pop-up (hover: "How this pen's collection reads") — cards, or a summary style where the marks read together as prose. The summary style is for a pen you use to mark the one sentence per section that sums it up.
• Collects (a tray icon toggle; hover: "Gather this pen's highlights into a browsable list").
• Makes study cards (a graduation-cap icon toggle; hover: "Make study cards from this pen — off for a pen used to mark whole sentences").
• A minus button to delete the pen. Its hover text names the pen; on the default pen it is disabled and reads "The default pen cannot be removed". Deleting asks: Delete Formulas? with Delete Pen, Keep Highlights or Cancel — text already highlighted keeps its highlight.

Drag rows to reorder them; the order sets ⌃1–⌃9 ③.

Add Pen ② is a menu of suggested pens — Formulas, Definitions, Examples, On the Exam, Unclear, Quotes, Summary — plus Custom…, which adds a blank pen called "New Pen" in the next color for you to rename. When every suggestion is installed the menu reads "All suggested pens added".

Pens per folder: the Highlighters popover

Different subjects need different pens: a green pen may mean "formula" in Accounting and "vocabulary" in Spanish. Inside a folder in the Library, click Highlighters in the header (hover: "This folder's highlighters — red here can mean something different than red elsewhere"). A popover lists the pens this folder uses.

• Until you change anything it reads "Following the pens above this folder. Any change makes this folder's own set." — the folder inherits the pens of its parent, or the app's.
• Each row has the color dot (click it for a nine-color picker), the Name field, a Collect toggle (tray icon), a Study cards toggle (graduation cap) and a Remove pen minus.
• Add a Pen (bottom-left) lists the suggested pens and Empty Pen.
• Once the folder has its own set, Follow the Parent Again appears at the top right to drop it and inherit again.

Maya marks a chapter

In Accounting II Maya opens Settings › Pens and adds Formulas and Definitions from the Add Pen menu. Back in her Chapter 10 note she selects "stockholders' equity" and presses ⌃3 (Definitions is her third pen); the words turn blue. She clicks the Highlighter button, picks up the green Formulas swatch, and sweeps across three formulas one after another; the ring on the swatch shows the pen is still in hand. She clicks Highlighter again to put it down. Later, in the Library, her folder shows a Highlights shelf with tiles for Definitions and Formulas and their counts — and chapter 9 will turn them into cards.

Summary

• A pen's name is its meaning; marks collect under that name and can become flashcards.
• The Highlighter button opens the tray; select-then-swatch or ⌃1–⌃9 applies a pen; picking up a swatch starts highlighter mode until you click Highlighter again.
• Remove highlight (⌃0) takes a mark off.
• Settings › Pens: name, color, treatment, collection style, collects, makes cards, delete, reorder, Add Pen.
• The Library's Highlighters popover gives a folder its own pen set.

Common mistakes

• Marking a whole sentence with a card-making pen — mark the term inside it.
• Forgetting a pen is still in hand, so clicks paint instead of placing the cursor — click Highlighter to put it down.
• Deleting a pen expecting the highlights to vanish — they stay; the pen's marks show as an unknown pen.

Best practices

• Two or three named pens per subject are plenty: terms, formulas, and "on the exam".
• Turn Makes study cards off for pens that mark sentences (Important, Summary).
• Give every pen a treatment if you present notes on a projector — colors wash out, brackets do not.

Keyboard shortcuts used

Related features to learn next

• Chapter 8, Collections — where the marks gather.
• Chapter 9, Study Mode and Flashcards — cards from your pens.
• Chapter 11, Writing with AI — prompts that name your pens.