The Notes app on the iPhone gained some handy new features with the latest iOS 18 update. The Live Audio Transcriptions and Maths Notes in the Notes app have become the highlighting features. However, the addition of text-highlighting and collapsible headings in the Notes app on iOS 18 has gone unnoticed by many users. The ability to highlight texts and add collapsible headings is massively useful for those who like to keep their notes organized and easy-to-read on their iPhones.
So, if you are someone who relies on the Notes app on the iPhone for daily note-taking activities and likes to keep note content organized, this article is for you. In this in-depth guide, we have discussed everything about how to highlight texts and add collapsible headings within notes in the Notes app on the iPhone in iOS 18. Check out the following sections for all the details!
Contents showThe Notes app on the iPhone has been one of the most basic note-taking applications for ages. Apple has taken its sweet time to develop the app and make it what it currently is on the iPhone by adding incremental changes with each new iOS iteration.
With the latest iOS 18 update, the Cupertino giant added the ability for users to highlight text content with any of the five pre-set colors within notes. Additionally, the company added support for collapsible headings to notes that let users organize their texts more easily than ever, making them easy to read and go through.
Both these new features are aimed at improving the quality of notes within the Notes app on the iPhone. While the text-highlighting feature can be highly useful in pointing out key phrases and sentences, the collapsible headings can help organize high-volume notes to make them precise and much easier to read.
So, if you want to take advantage of these new features in the Notes app on your iPhone in iOS 18, take a look at the sections right below:
Now, highlighting text content within notes in the Notes app on the iPhone in iOS 18 is pretty straightforward. If you already use the rich text formatting options while taking notes with the Notes app on your iPhone, highlighting texts would be a piece of cake for you. You will find the new highlight option on the formatting menu bar in the Notes app after you update your iPhone to the latest iOS 18 version.
However, if you are unaware of the rich text formatting options within the Notes app on your iPhone, follow the steps right below to learn how to highlight the texts in your notes in iOS 18:
1. Launch the Notes app on your iOS device and open the note in which you want to highlight the texts.
2. Tap anywhere within the document to bring up the keyboard.
3. Then, double-tap a word near the section of the note where you want to highlight the texts.
4. Use the selection tool to select the words that you want to highlight.
5. You can then tap the right-arrow (>) button on the context menu to access additional text options.
6. There, you can tap the Format option.
7. Alternatively, you can tap the Plus (+) button above the keyboard to access the available tools in the Notes app.
8. On the Tools bar above the keyboard, tap the Format (Aa) button to open the rich text formatting options.
9. Now, under the Format section, you will find the new Highlight section, split into two buttons.
10. The color-button in the Highlight section shows the currently selected highlight color. So, if you want to use the same color to highlight the selected text content in your note, you can simply tap the Highlight (Pencil) button to enable it.
11. In case you want to change the highlight color, tap the color-button to access the overflow menu, containing all the available color options. These include – Purple, Pink, Orange, Mint, and Blue.
12. On the overflow menu, tap the color with which you want to highlight the selected texts to change the highlight color.
Note: The highlight color will be set to the selected color for all your further text-highlighting activities until you change it from the color overflow menu again.
13. This way, you can keep the Format UI open, select the texts that you want to highlight in the note, and simply tap the Highlight button to instantly highlight them.
In case you want to de-highlight previously highlighted texts, follow the steps right below:
1. Simply select the texts and open the Format section using the previous steps.
2. There, tap the Highlight (Pencil) button to disable the highlighting.
3. When you are done, you can tap the x button to close the Format section.
So, this way, you can highlight text content within notes in the Notes app to make them noticeable on your iPhone in iOS 18.
The concept of collapsible headings is super useful for organizing long-form content and providing a pointers-focused view for readers to go through the text content more easily than ever. So, with the addition of collapsible headings in the Notes app, you can now make your long-form notes more organized and easily readable.
Coming to how you can add collapsible headings to your notes within the Notes app on the iPhone in iOS 18, it is as easy as converting a text section into a heading or a subheading. When you convert texts in your notes into Heading or Subheading using the rich text formatting options, they automatically become collapsible.
In case you are unaware about how to convert texts into headings or subheadings in notes within the Notes app on your iPhone, follow the steps right below:
1. Launch the Notes app and open the note in which you want to add collapsible headings.
2. Now, tap the text section in the note that you want to convert to a heading or subheading.
3. Make sure there is a line break between the section that you are converting into the heading or subheading and the body of it. Otherwise, the entire section will be converted into a heading or subheading.
4. In case there is no line break between the sections, you can place the cursor between them and tap the Return button on the on-screen keyboard.
5. Once the line break is added, place the cursor at the end of the text section that you want to make the heading or subheading, and tap the Plus (+) button above the keyboard.
6. Next, tap the Format (Aa) button on the menu bar above the keyboard.
7. Here, tap the Heading or Subheading button to convert the current text section into the same.
8. You can then keep the Format menu bar open, place the cursor at the end of text sections that you want as headings or subheadings, and convert them using the Heading or Subheading buttons.
9. When you are done, tap the x button to close the Format menu bar.
Now, once you add the headings and/or subheadings to your note in the Notes app on your iPhone in iOS 18, they will automatically become collapsible and you will see a tiny arrow button pop up next to each of them. You can then tap this arrow button to expand or collapse the headings or subheadings in the note.
So, this is how you can add collapsible headings to notes in the Notes app on your iPhone in iOS 18. The collapsible headings not only make notes interactive and organized but also make it much easier for a reader to go through the content and find relevant information or data in it.
Collapsible headings or subheadings in the Notes app on the iPhone are interactive sections within notes that can be expanded or collapsed to view or hide text content under headings and/or subheadings.
Although the ability to highlight texts in the Notes app is not available on iPhones running iOS 17 or older, it is available on the latest iOS 18 update. So, if you are running the latest iOS 18 version on your iPhone, you will be able to highlight texts in the Notes app.
Users running the latest iOS 18 version on their iPhones can simply convert text content within notes into headings or subheadings to automatically make them collapsible in the Notes app.
The support for collapsible headings in the Notes app on the iPhone is exclusively available with iOS 18. So, if you cannot add collapsible headings or subheadings to your notes in the Notes app on your iPhone, chances are you are running iOS 17 or an earlier iOS version.
That pretty much wraps up our comprehensive guide on how to highlight texts and use collapsible headings in the Notes app on the iPhone in iOS 18. The ability to highlight texts and add collapsible headings or subheadings in the Notes app helps users, especially those who rely on the said app for their daily note-taking and writing activities, organize their notes and make them easy-to-read.
We hope this article helped you understand how to colorize text content within your notes to highlight them and add collapsible headings or subheadings. If it did, don’t forget to let us know in the comments below. You can also subscribe to our platform with your email ID to get notified about our latest posts. As always, thank you for reading this article till the end, and we will see you again in our next guide.
After graduating with a Bachelor's in Business Administration, Dwaipayan has worked for reputable media firms such as Beebom and Pinkvilla. He has written over 1500 articles in his 3+ years of writing career and specializes in How-tos about Windows issues and features, flash news, and custom mechanical keyboards. When he is not writing or customizing mechanical keyboards, you can find him playing an intense Valorant match or browsing through his Reddit feed.
