The Well-Appointed Desk

There’s more options in highlighters than what you can find in the aisles of your local big box office supply store so I thought I’d round-up some more unusual highlighter options available.

The refillable highlighter:

If I have a choice, I’d rather not throw away pens if I can get more life out of them so the Staedtler Textsurfer highlighter ($1.45) and ink refill station is a great way to extend the life of your highlighter. I suspect the ink could be used with any highlighter so if you’ve got a couple laying around that need refilling, the ink refill station ($9) might be a great option. Another option is the Platinum Preppy refillable highlighter pen ($2.50) and pack of 3 refill cartridges ($2.50). Tip refills are even available for the Preppy highlighter ($1.65 for pack of two). The Platinum converter ($7) can be added to the Preppy highlighter so that the pen can be filled with any type of highlighter ink that suits your fancy. Go green, I mean yellow (or pink or blue..)!

The dry highlighter:

There’s pencil-style dry highlighters in wood casings like the Faber-Castell Textliner Dry or a more lead holder/mechanical-style pencil like the E+M chunky 5.5mm wood-cased lead holder ($16) and 6-pack of highlighter leads ($9.50). Then there’s highlighter tape like the Tombo Mono highlighter dispenser or a removable tape option from Lee. The advantages of the dry highlighters are that they do not dry out or bleed through to the back of the page.

The erasable highlighter:

The Pilot Frixion erasable highlighter is available in five colors and uses the same friction-activated erasable technology that all the Frixion series pens use. If you’re prone to rethinking your highlighting, this might be a good option. $1.65 each.

The fountain pen highlighter:

A fountain pen highlighter is a slightly more posh option but something I’ve always kind of wanted to own. The most notorious fountain pen highlighter option is the Pelikan m205. Its a extra wide BB nib and a clear, bright yellow plastic casing. The pen ships with a bottle of Pelikan Highlighter ink for about $120. A Kaweco Ice Sport in yellow with a B nib or replace the nib with a calligraphy nib in 1.1mm or 1.9mm and then fill it with Noodler’s  Firefly Yellow ink would be about $50 which might be a more cost-effective option.

Are there any other kinds of highlighters I might have overlooked? Do you have a favorite brand or color of highlighter?