Highlight Text With Marker Pen Background Color in Outlook

A simple way to emphasize words

Highlighted text
Highlight Text in Outlook. pearleye / Getty Images

When you create an email in Outlook, you can highlight text as if you were using a yellow highlighter on paper. Here's how.

Instructions in this article apply to Outlook 2019, 2016, 2013; Outlook for Microsoft 365, and Outlook.com.

  1. Select the text in your email that you want to highlight.

    Screenshot of selected text

    Your email edit window might look slightly different than shown here, depending on the version of Outlook you're using.

  2. Go to the Message tab and, in the Basic Text group, select Text Highlight Color.

    In Outlook.com, an editing bar should appear above the text you've selected; choose the highlight tool to apply the effect to the text. Or, go to the Formatting toolbar at the bottom of the message window, select Highlight, and choose a highlight color.

    Screenshot of Highlight Marker
  3. The text is highlighted with the default color.

    To change the color of the highlighter, select the Text Highlight Color dropdown arrow and choose a color.

  4. To use the highlighter to highlight several text elements, select Text Highlight Color.

  5. Drag the marker across the text you want to highlight.

  6. When you've highlighted all the text, select Text Highlight Color to turn off the marker.

Remove Highlight from Text

To remove highlighting from part or all of the text in an email message, simply select the text and repeat these steps again. Or:

  1. Select the highlighted text.

  2. Select Text Highlight Color.

    To select all the text in an email message, press Ctrl+A.

  3. Select the Text Highlight Color dropdown arrow.

    Screenshot showing No Color
  4. Choose No Color.

On Outlook.com, after selecting the text you want the highlight removed on, return to the highlight button and choose the white color option.

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