Quick Highlight - Highlight & format text during review with shortcuts

<p align="center"> <h1 align="center">⚡ Quick Highlight</h1> <p align="center"> <strong>Highlight and format text during Anki review with keyboard shortcuts.</strong> </p> <p align="center"> Select text → press a shortcut → done. No editor, no color picker, no clicks. </p> <p align="center"> <a href="#installation">Installation</a> • <a href="#usage">Usage</a> • <a href="#shortcuts">Shortcuts</a> • <a href="#configuration">Configuration</a> • <a href="#contributing">Contributing</a> </p> </p>

The Problem

When reviewing Anki cards, highlighting a word requires way too many steps:

1. Click Edit
2. Select the text
3. Click the color button
4. Open the color picker
5. Choose a color
6. Click OK
7. Close the editor

<p align="center"> <img src="screenshots/old_workflow.png" alt="The old tedious workflow" width="700"> <br> <em>The old way — Edit Current → Color Picker → OK. Tedious.</em> </p>

The Solution

With Quick Highlight, it's just:

1. Select text on the card
2. Press a shortcut (e.g. Ctrl+Shift+G)
3. ✅ Done — saved permanently

<p align="center"> <img src="screenshots/review_card.png" alt="Highlighted card during review" width="700"> <br> <em>Words highlighted in green and yellow — applied instantly during review.</em> </p>

Features

• Instant color highlighting — green, yellow, red, orange, blue (or any custom color)
• B Bold text with one shortcut
• Superscript formatting (x²) for annotations or references
• Paste clipboard as superscript — instantly attach translations or meanings in small superscript font
• Color picker for custom colors on the fly
• Remove formatting to undo highlights/superscripts
• Auto-save — changes are saved to the note immediately
• Syncs everywhere — highlights are stored as HTML, so they show on AnkiMobile & AnkiDroid
• Fully configurable — customize colors and shortcuts via Anki's addon config
• Works on both question and answer sides of the card

Installation

Method 1: Manual Install (from GitHub)

1. Find your Anki addons folder:

   • Anki → Tools → Add-ons → Open Add-ons Folder
   • Or navigate to ~/.local/share/Anki2/addons21/ (Linux), %APPDATA%\Anki2\addons21\ (Windows), ~/Library/Application Support/Anki2/addons21/ (macOS)

2. Clone or download this repo into the addons folder:

   cd ~/.local/share/Anki2/addons21/
   git clone https://github.com/samidunimsara/Quick-Highlight.git quick_highlight
   

   Or download the ZIP, extract it, and rename the folder to quick_highlight.

3. Restart Anki

Method 2: AnkiWeb (coming soon)

<!-- Install from AnkiWeb: Quick Highlight --> <!-- Or paste code XXXXXXXX in Tools → Add-ons → Get Add-ons -->

Usage

1. Open a deck and start reviewing cards
2. Select any word or phrase by clicking and dragging your mouse over it
3. Press a keyboard shortcut — formatting is applied instantly!
4. Keep reviewing — changes are saved automatically!

Shortcuts

Tip: All shortcuts and colors are customizable — see Configuration below.

Configuration

Go to Tools → Add-ons → Quick Highlight → Config to customize:

{
    "colors": {
        "green": "#00ff00",
        "yellow": "#ffff00",
        "red": "#ff0000",
        "orange": "#ffa500",
        "blue": "#00bfff"
    },
    "shortcuts": {
        "green": "Ctrl+Shift+G",
        "yellow": "Ctrl+Shift+Y",
        "bold": "Ctrl+Shift+B",
        "red": "Ctrl+Shift+R",
        "orange": "Ctrl+Shift+O",
        "remove": "Ctrl+Shift+X",
        "picker": "Ctrl+Shift+L",
        "superscript": "Ctrl+=",
        "paste_superscript": "Ctrl+Shift+V"
    }
}

Adding a new color

1. Add the color to "colors":

   "pink": "#ff69b4"
   

2. Add a matching shortcut to "shortcuts":

   "pink": "Ctrl+Shift+I"
   

3. Restart Anki

How It Works

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Reviewer WebView                                       │
│                                                         │
│  You select "treibt das Rohöl" and press Ctrl+Shift+G   │
│                                                         │
│  ┌──────────────────────────────┐                       │
│  │ JavaScript (injected)        │                       │
│  │ 1. Gets selected text        │                       │
│  │ 2. Wraps in <span> visually  │                       │
│  │ 3. Sends pycmd() to Python   │                       │
│  └──────────────┬───────────────┘                       │
│                 │                                        │
│                 ▼                                        │
│  ┌──────────────────────────────┐                       │
│  │ Python Addon                 │                       │
│  │ 1. Finds matching note field │                       │
│  │ 2. Wraps text with HTML      │                       │
│  │ 3. Saves to database         │                       │
│  │ 4. Refreshes card display    │                       │
│  └──────────────────────────────┘                       │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Compatibility

File Structure

quick_highlight/
├── __init__.py      # Main addon logic
├── manifest.json    # Addon metadata
├── config.json      # Default configuration
├── config.md        # Config documentation (shown in Anki)
├── screenshots/     # Images for README
├── LICENSE          # MIT License
└── README.md        # This file

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to:

• Open an issue for bugs or feature requests
• Submit a pull request with improvements
• Star the repo if you find it useful!

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License — see the LICENSE file for details.

<p align="center"> Made for language learners who highlight a lot of words. 🌍📚 </p>