CSS Text Highlighter Generator
Create marker-style text highlight effects with CSS — flat, underline, marker, or half-height styles in any color and thickness, with copy-ready code. Free.
💡 How to use
- The highlight is a background gradient behind text — it wraps naturally across lines.
- Wrap the words to highlight in a
<span class="highlight">. - Great for emphasising key phrases in headings and hero copy.
Free CSS Text Highlighter Generator
Create marker-style text highlight effects with CSS and copy the code in one click. Choose a flat, underline, marker, or half-height style, pick your color and thickness, and preview it live — then paste ready-to-use CSS to emphasise key words. Free, no sign-up, runs in your browser.
What is a CSS text highlight?
A CSS highlight is a colored band drawn behind text to emphasise it, like a marker pen over a word or phrase. Unlike the plain background-color used by the <mark> element, this technique uses a background gradient sized and positioned to sit behind the text — so you can make it thinner than the full line, place it low like an underline, or give it an uneven marker look. It wraps naturally across line breaks, too.
How to use the highlighter generator
It is instant:
- Pick a highlight style — flat, underline sweep, marker, or half height.
- Choose the color and adjust the thickness.
- Preview it on sample text.
- Copy the CSS and wrap the words you want highlighted in a span.
How the highlight works
The effect is a background image — a solid gradient — applied to an inline span, with background-size controlling how tall the band is and background-position placing it low behind the text. Because it is a background rather than a full-height fill, you get that marker-behind-the-words look, and setting background-repeat to no-repeat keeps it clean. It sits behind the text at a partial height, mimicking a highlighter pen.
Where to use text highlights
Highlights are a punchy way to draw the eye to the most important words in a heading, hero headline, or pull quote. Used sparingly, a single highlighted phrase guides readers straight to your key message. They also work for a hand-drawn, editorial feel — the uneven 'marker' style in particular gives copy a friendly, human touch that flat design sometimes lacks.
Keeping highlights readable and accessible
Choose a highlight color that keeps the text on top readable — light, warm colors like yellow work well behind dark text, while dark highlights need light text. Do not rely on the highlight alone to convey meaning, since color is not perceivable by everyone; use it for visual emphasis on top of already-clear wording. And use it selectively — highlighting everything highlights nothing.
Pro tip
For headings, the 'flat' or 'marker' styles at around 40 to 50 percent thickness read best; for body emphasis, the thin 'underline' style is subtler. Store the highlight color as a CSS variable so all your highlights stay on-brand. Pair this with our CSS Gradient Text Generator for another eye-catching text treatment.
FAQ
Is this CSS Highlighter Generator free?
How do I highlight text with CSS?
How is this different from the <mark> element?
Does the highlight wrap across multiple lines?
How do I keep the highlighted text readable?
Can I change how thick the highlight is?
Does it work in all browsers?
Related tools
Pro tip: pair this tool with CSS Box-Shadow Generator and CSS Flexbox Generator for a faster SEO workflow.