Highlights and private notes in an early copy

What you can do

In an early copy you read on Booklabria, select a passage and a small menu opens above it (on a phone, a bar above the bottom bar):

• Four colours to highlight it: Highlight in yellow, green, blue or pink. Colours carry no meaning, and a highlight with a note also gets a small marker, so a note never depends on colour.
• Note, to write your own words about the passage (plain text, up to 2,000 characters). It saves when you close the note.
• Copy quote and Share a quote, only where the author allows quoting and the book is out (before its release day neither appears), and only up to the quoting limit. Copy quote puts the passage on your clipboard with its attribution line. Share a quote opens a box to post it, with the book, the chapter and any comment you add, to the audience you choose; a public quote shows on the book page under Quotes.

With a keyboard, select with Shift and the arrow keys, then press H to highlight in the last colour you used or N to add a note; Esc closes the menu. Select an existing highlight to change its colour, add or edit its note, or remove it. Highlights and notes follow the passage when you change the font or the size.

Samples are different: a sample has bookmarks but no highlights or notes.

Your notes and highlights

Open the contents and choose Notes & highlights (with a count when you have some), beside Contents and Bookmarks. They are listed in book order, grouped by chapter, with the passage, your note, and where it is. Filter by All, Notes or a colour. Each one has Go to, Edit the note (or Add a note) and Remove this highlight; after a remove, Highlight removed stays with an Undo for six seconds. Remove all asks Remove everything from this copy? first. If a changed manuscript no longer has a passage, it is listed under Couldn't find these in the updated copy.

In your Library the copy shows Your notes (n), which opens them read only, on a page called Your notes on the book.

Using them to write your review

• Download notes (.md) saves a Markdown file from your browser: the book, the early copy, the day and your copy's watermark code, then each passage with your note.
• In the review form, on the book page and in the request dialog, a collapsible Your notes (n) sits above the review field, read only, so you can look at them while you write. Only you can see your notes and highlights. Nothing is added to your review for you; quoting from them is your own choice.

They are private

Only you can see your notes and highlights. No screen shows them to the author, the pen name's team or our operators, and the author sees no count of them. What the author sees of your reading is how far you got, or that you downloaded the copy, never what you marked. A quote you choose to share is different: Share a quote posts the passage you pick, and the comment you add in its box, to the audience you choose; your note is not included. Your highlights and notes are part of your data export, under Highlights and notes.

Limits

An early copy cannot be copied out of the reader: copy and cut are switched off in the text, and the first time you try the reader says Early copies can't be copied. Highlight it or add a note instead.

One highlight can hold about 100 words (600 characters); for a longer passage the menu says Select up to about 100 words to highlight. All your highlights on one copy together can cover up to 10% of the book, counted in words, and there are at most 2,000 of them. Near the limit the panel says You've used most of this copy's highlight allowance. At the limit new highlights are refused: You've highlighted as much of this early copy as it allows. Notes on existing highlights still work. Notes themselves have no limit beyond their 2,000 characters.

When the copy closes

When reading closes (you mark the book as not finished, you choose another way to read it, or the copy is no longer approved) you keep your notes and highlights for 30 days: the copy in your Library says Reading has closed. Your notes stay here until the date, with Open your notes to list them read only, and you can still download them. On the 23rd day a notice in the app and by e-mail, as your notification settings allow, says Your notes and highlights on the book will be removed in 7 days. Download them from your Library first. After that they are deleted. If the copy opens again, they stay.