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Annotation Basics

If you don’t have a free Hypothesis account yet or need to equip your browser with our extension or bookmarklet, visit our Get Started page or find more detailed help in our Quick Start Guide.

Once you’re equipped with Hypothesis, you can explore and interact with public annotations. You’ll need to log in to create annotations and to see private or group annotations.

Viewing annotations

Visit any webpage and activate Hypothesis in Chrome or any Chromium-based browser by clicking the Hypothesis extension button in your toolbar.

An image showing the Chrome browser with the Hypothesis extension displayed in the right. The Hypothesis extension is greyed out indicating that it is not activated.
Hypothesis extension when deactivated

 

An image showing the Chrome browser with the Hypothesis extension displayed in the right. The Hypothesis extension is lit up indicating that it is activated.
Hypothesis extension when activated

 

 

In other browsers like Firefox or Safari, click the bookmarklet in your toolbar to activate Hypothesis.

 

If Hypothesis is already activated, the website you are visiting probably has embedded Hypothesis so any visitor can use annotation without needing a browser extension or bookmarklet.

Open the Hypothesis sidebar or click on highlights to view existing public annotations.

An image showing a webpage with visible highlights. It also has the Hypothesis sidebar collapsed with a clickable chevron icon to expand it.

 

Use the Hypothesis sidebar to explore annotations and page notes.

An image displaying the Hypothesis sidebar. It displays the different parts of the sidebar. It shows the options to add a page note, toggle highlights, view annotations, the group selector, view page notes, search annotations, sort annotations, share annotations, Help and account. It also displays different individual annotations.

 

Log in to Hypothesis in the upper right of the sidebar to see your own private annotations and annotations in your private groups.

An image showing the upper portion of the Hypothesis sidebar. It highlights the button to sign up or log in.

 

Interacting with annotations

Every annotation has various components, including a unique link (aka URL) you can use to share it on social media, via email, or by copying the link to paste elsewhere.

An image showing the different parts of an annotation card. It displays the highlighted text, the note, annotation author, time stamp, tags and the buttons for reply, share and flag for moderation.

 

Log in to Hypothesis to reply to any annotation or page note, starting an attached, threaded conversation.

An image showing a top level annotation, a reply to a top level annotation and a reply to another reply. It also shows an editor showing what one sees when you click the reply button.

 

Creating annotations

Log in to Hypothesis and use your cursor to select any text. The annotation adder will pop up, enabling you to choose whether to create a highlight (highlights are like private annotations with no related note) or to annotate the selected text.

An image showing a text with several visible highlights. It also show the adder which displays options to click Annotate or Highlight.

When creating an annotation, use the toolbar above your note to format text, and add links, pictures, or equations (in LaTeX format). You can also paste links to YouTube videos to embed videos in your note. You can also mention other users to call their attention to your annotation. There’s a help button to learn more about the simple “Markdown” formatting.

An image showing an annotation card in edit mode. It displays the toolbar, the formatting help button and preview. It also has sample annotation written on it to display how to write text in bold or italic. It also shows how to enter text in block quotes, numbered or bulleted list. It also displays how to add links, images, equations and how to embed a YouTube video.
Annotation card in edit mode

 

 

Use Preview to see how your note will look before you post.

An image showing an annotation card in preview mode. It displays bold and italic text and numbered and bulleted list. It also displays a link and image, equation and an embedded YouTube video.
Annotation card in preview mode

 

 

You can search annotations by tags, allowing you to organize and connect related annotations easily. To add multiple tags, press Tab or Comma after each tag.

An image showing an annotation card with multiple tags entered.

 

Use the groups menu in the sidebar to choose whether to post your finished note in the public layer or in one of your groups.

An image showing the Hypothesis sidebar. It has the groups selector expanded. It displays multiple groups to choose from.

 

In whichever group you choose, you can make your note private by choosing “Only Me”. For more information on how this works, see our help article: Who can see my annotations?

An image showing the Post to button expanded. It shows the options to Post to public or Only me.

 

You can also create public or private page notes to make more general annotations not related to specific highlights on the page.

An image showing the Hypothesis sidebar with a button to create a page note and a tab to view page notes.

 

You can come back at any time to edit or delete your own highlights, annotations, replies, or page notes.

Exploring annotations

If you return to any webpage or document with annotations and activate Hypothesis, you’ll see all your own annotations, along with any annotations shared by other people. But you can also click on your username in the Hypothesis sidebar to visit your profile to find all your annotations collected together.

An image showing where to click to access the account menu in the Hypothesis sidebar. It shows the options when the account button is clicked. It displays options to click your name, account settings, open notebook and log out.

 

Your profile is a dashboard, also called activity page. where you can find a list of all your annotated documents with the latest at the top, and search them by keywords, tag, group, or URL (ie, the web address of an annotated document).

An image showing the activity page. It shows the activity page displaying the annotations of the logged in user.

 

Click on any document in the list to see details, including all annotations, highlighted text, tags, annotators, and links to visit the original source and annotations in context, or to share annotations via social media, email, or elsewhere.

An image showing the activity page. It highlights where one can see other annotated documents and view individual annotations. It also shows the the View annotations in context button.

 

The same dashboard in your profile enables you to explore not only your own annotations, but also public and shared annotations by others. Click in the search field to expand beyond your own annotations and search by keywords, user, tag, group, or URL (ie, the web address of an annotated document). More details about how to search in the activity page can be viewed here.

Image showing Hypothesis annotation search filters.

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