# WordPress Emphasis Plugin: Highlight and Permalink Text

**TL;DR:** One-click implementation of the New York Times open source emphasis script as a WordPress plugin which allows for highlighting and permalinking of text on a paragraph and sentence level.

Published 2011-01-11 · [View on Ben Balter's site](https://ben.balter.com/2011/01/11/wordpress-emphasis-plugin/)

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<img src="https://ben.balter.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/emphasis-screenshot.png" alt="Screenshot of the plugin in use" title="Screenshot of Emphasis WordPress Plugin" class="float-left mr-3 border" />

The New York Times [recently open-sourced](http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/emphasis-update-and-source/) their nifty wizardry which allows users to highlight and link to specific text within an article or post. In their own words:

> Emphasis provides dynamic paragraph-specific anchor links and the ability to highlight text in a document, all of which is made available in the URL hash so it can be emailed, bookmarked, or shared.

I adapted the New York Time's implementation into a three-line WordPress plugin for my own site, and it is available in the [WordPress plugin repository](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-emphasis/) as a one-click install, to add it to your own.

The "deep links" plugin allows for permalinking and highlighting of text on a paragraph and sentence level. No need to set anything up. Just install, tap shift twice, and start highlighting.