iOS 18 Notes Background Styles and Color Highlighting

Apple’s iOS 18 update introduces native text highlighting to the Notes app, allowing users to emphasize text using five distinct colors. This guide outlines which background paper styles support text color highlighting, how the feature interacts with note formatting, and how to use these tools together effectively.

Supported Background Styles

In iOS 18, color highlighting is a universal text-formatting attribute. It is fully supported across all custom background paper styles available in the Notes app. Whether you use a standard blank canvas or structured paper templates, highlight colors render consistently without visual conflicts.

The supported background styles include:

  • Blank Canvas: The default plain white (or dark in Dark Mode) background.
  • Ruled / Lined Paper:
    • Narrow Ruled
    • Medium Ruled
    • Wide Ruled
  • Grid Paper:
    • Small Grid
    • Medium Grid
    • Large Grid

Regardless of whether a background has horizontal lines or square grids, the color highlight appears directly behind the selected text characters, layering above the background lines while maintaining readability.

Available Highlight Colors

The iOS 18 Notes app provides five pastel highlight shades designed to maintain high contrast in both Light Mode and Dark Mode:

  • Purple
  • Pink
  • Orange
  • Mint
  • Blue

These colors automatically adapt their luminosity based on your system appearance (Light or Dark Mode) to ensure that the text and underlying paper grid remain clear.

How Highlighting Works with Block Styles

In addition to full-page background styles (Lines and Grids), Notes includes structural text styles with their own localized background shading:

  • Block Quotes: Block quotes feature a vertical accent bar and a slight background tint. Text highlighting functions normally inside block quotes, with the highlight color layering seamlessly over the block quote’s native shading.
  • Monospaced / Code Blocks: Code blocks use a distinct grey background container. Text within monospaced sections can also receive color highlights to annotate specific lines of text or code.
  • Collapsible Sections: Headers that fold and collapse also support highlighted text, preserving the color whether the section is expanded or minimized.

Applying Backgrounds and Color Highlights

  1. Change the Background Style: Open a note, tap the Share button (or the three-dot More menu), select Lines & Grids, and choose any of the six ruled or grid options.
  2. Highlight Text: Select the text you want to format, tap the formatting icon (Aa) in the keyboard toolbar, and tap the color wheel or highlight swatch to pick one of the five available colors.