The Post-it Flag Plus Highlighters in Blue, Green, and Yellow.

What good is an office supply review blog if you dont review one more frequently used office tools out there?  The 3M Wide Barrel Post-it Flag Plus Highlighter is not only a highlighter, but also a Post-it flag dispenser.  This is another office supply that was sent to me for review by my generous contact at 3M.  The Post-it® Flag Plus Highlighter, 3 Pack, Yellow are available via the link from Staples for about $8, or you can also grab the Post-it® Flag Plus Highlighter, Assorted, 3/Pack if you want to add blue and green to the mix as well.  Either way, these wide body highlighters are a great tool to have in your arsenal, so check out the rest of this review, and I hope you enjoy.

To me, the most obvious thing about these highlighters when I opened the package was the meaty body and grip section.  Im a big fan of thicker pens and writing implements, so these highlighters definitely fit into that category.  The comfortable tapered and textured grip on these highlighters is something that I have become accustomed to with all of the Post-it brand pens, I think they did a great job on this part of their pen line.  Another nice feature of this highlighter is the chiseled tip that puts down a wide and solid line, with no indication of becoming soft and mushy like some highlighters that I have used in the past.  The top compartment holds a nice stash of the Post-it flags, which can be refilled once empty, and the colors of the flags obviously match the color of the ink.  I know some people (such as those in Law School) that go through highlighters by the dozens, and do lots of color coding of their reading, I think these would  be a great option for those people, or anyone that likes to color code their work.

Writing sample of the Post-it Flag Plus Highlighter over various inks and lead.

No office supply review of a writing instrument would be complete without some sort of writing sample, so Ive got two of them here for you.  The first writing sample shows how the Post-it Flag Plus Highlighters react to highlighting over various types of written ink (and one lead) and the second sample shows how the highlighters react to printed text book style printing.  As you can see above, the highlighters do a pretty good job of not smearing any of the ink or led when you highlight directly over them, another positive for these highlighters.  The shade of the highlighting that you see in the scans is quite a bit more muted than the actual real life color, when scanning them, my scanner really lightened them up.  I’ve also put one of the corresponding flags next to each highlighter sample so you can get a feel for how they look, the flags are much more representative of the intensity of the highlighter ink colors.

Writing sample of the Post-it Flag Highlighter in a text book.

I did the second writing sample for the highlighters in a printed text book because I think that for the most part, a majority of highlighter users tend to highlight directly in text books like this.  Again, you can see pretty clearly that there is absolutely no smearing of the highlighted text, which is critical to any good highlighting experience.  One other thing that is not quite evident from the scans is that the highlighter does not cause any puckering or ink saturation on the page which would be the sign of an overly inky tip…I think the ink flow on these is just right.

Ive been using these highlighters for a bit now and I have to say that they are really a great tool to have at your disposal.  Beyond the great look and solid feel that you have while highlighting with them, they pretty much make other highlighters irrelevant due to the added feature of the flags without compromising the form factor or weight of the pen.  If you are a highlighter user, these are a must have.

On a totally unrelated note, this review was 90% written while I was on a train, Amtrak from NJ to DC.  The train is such a good way to be productive while traveling…especially here in the “Quiet Car” where no cell phones are allowed.  Already saw one person get yelled at and banished from the car, it was fantastic.  Anyway, as I said Ill be in DC this weekend, so I do have an idea for an office supply related post that I can do based on something that is here, so hopefully that idea will work out.