How to Highlight Text in WordPress (2 Easy Methods)

Highlighting is a time-honored tradition to bring attention to key parts of any text. Everyone highlights documents, from students to professionals and it’s a feature that’s sorely lacking on a lot of websites. That’s why learning how to use WordPress to highlight text can be such a valuable skill. 🤓

By highlighting text, you can point visitors toward the most important parts of any post or article. It makes it easy for users to get the gist of what you’re discussing and it looks good on a page. That last part is no small thing, as making posts as engaging as possible is critical to their success.

In this article, we’re going to show you two ways to use WordPress to highlight text. Let’s start with the more straightforward approach! 🎬

1. Highlight text using the Block Editor 🧱

It can be hard to spot, but the Block Editor offers a simple feature for highlighting text. To find it, you’ll need to select a block of text or part of it. Once you do, look for the downward-pointing arrow icon in the formatting menu that appears next to the block and click on it. The Highlight option should be the first in the menu:

When you click on highlight, you’ll be able to choose both the color of the text and its background. That means you can create different highlight combinations:

There is a possibility to choose colors from the selection at the bottom of the menu or click on the color picker tool. The tool works with hex codes and it enables you to choose from any color in the spectrum:

After you select a color for the letters, repeat the same process for the background. Here’s what the result looks like using the classic black letters on a yellow background highlight:

Note that you need to pick the words you want to highlight within a block. If you don’t select any part of the text, the highlight won’t apply.

2. Highlight text using a plugin 🔌

WP Shortcodes Plugin — Shortcodes Ultimate

Author(s): Vova Anokhin

Current Version: 7.3.3

Last Updated: January 5, 2025

shortcodes-ultimate.7.3.3.zip

98%Ratings 500,000+Installs WP 5.0+Requires

This method can be useful if you’re still using the Classic Editor or you don’t want to use the default highlight feature the Block Editor includes. The plugin we recommend using is Shortcodes Ultimate:

As the name implies, this plugin adds a collection of shortcodes to your website. Those shortcodes include a lot of useful features, including options for adding accordion sections, expanding tabs, embedding maps, and dozens of other functions.

Among those shortcodes, you have one that enables you to use WordPress to highlight text. Here’s what it looks like:

Hi! [su_highlight background="#DDFF99" color="#000000"]This part of the text is highlighted for importance[/su_highlight]. This part of the text isn't.

If you install and activate the plugin, then add that shortcode on a page, the result will look like this:

Hi!  This part of the text is highlighted for importance . This part of the text isn’t.

You can write anything you want between the su_highlight tags. However, keep in mind you have to specify two attributes, which are background and color.

Both attributes should have different HEX color codes. Ideally, they should be colors that contrast well so users can make out the text you choose to highlight.

Conclusion 🧐

That means taking a second to highlight key parts of an article or a post can help ensure that users pay attention where you want them to.

👨‍🎓 Learning how to use WordPress to highlight text is simple. There are two basic ways in which you can go about it:

1. 🧱 Highlight text using the Block Editor.
2. 🔌 Highlight text using the Shortcodes Ultimate plugin.

Do you have any questions about how to use WordPress to highlight text? Let’s talk about them in the comments section below!