Inkjet and copy safe highlighters from Staedtler, the Textsurfer Classic

Highlighters that resist smearing inkjet print are hard to come by, but these Staedtler Textsurfer highlighters claim to do that, and on top of that they also claim that the violet and turquoise highlighters that come in this set remain visible when photocopied.  Pretty impressive claims, and if these Staedtler Textsurfers stand up to them I’d say thats a great qualification to be considered for the cool office supplies category that I try to focus on reviewing here.

The Staedtler Textsurfer Classic Highlighters Uncapped

The Staedtler Textsurfer Classic come in 8 colors: Blue, Green, Orange, Pink, Purple, Red, Turquoise, and Yellow.   The vast array of colors is great because I know of some students and researchers who like to color code their work using highlighters.  The chisel tip does a good job of creating both a wide enough line to cover an entire word, or you can also create a fine enough line to just underline text.  An additional benefit to of the physical make up of these highlighters is that they have a flat body so there is no need to worry about them rolling away when you lay them down.  This design doesn’t make for the most absolutely comfortable highlighter to hold onto, but it’s definately not that bad, and in fact this body style is pretty common for highlighters, so I’m sure you may have used one like this before.

Staedtler Textsurfer Highlighter Writing Sample

Doing the writing sample for these Staedtler inkjet safe highlighters was a fun exercise.  In the photo above you can see that I tested them on two different size Arial fonts.  I used a size 10 and 12 because thats what I tend to see and use the most myself, and I printed the sample above and scaned it using my Epson Artisan 810, which I’ve never reviewed here, but its an awesome Inkjet all-in-one printer.  As you can see, all 8 colors pass the test of highlighters that don’t smear inkjet print, and the colors do jump off the page quite nicely.  Just for reference purposes, the highlighting was done almost instantly after the document finished printing, there was probably no more than 2 minutes that went by from the time that I hit the print button, and finished the writing sample.  Additionally, the non-smear on the inkjet print worked fairly well up until about the 6th or 7th pass directly over the ink.  Personally I think that is more sufficient, if you are highlighting the same area repeatedly like that, I think there might be another issue that has nothing to do with the pens.   One additional note on the colors though, I don’t think the red one is really that “red” but is more of a pink.  You probably wouldn’t know that it was supposed to be the red one without having it right next to the pink one.

The Staedtler Textsurfer Highlighter Writing Sample as a Black and White Photo Copy

Now that I was able to confirm that these highlighters do not smear inkjet print, it was time to move on to the second clam regarding the ability to still see the purple and turquoise versions on a black and white photo copy.  I’m not sure what to make of this claim, because as you can see, the scan above shows that every color, including the yellow still show up well on a black and white copy.  Although this kind of conflicts with that claim, I personally think it is a positive that they all show up in a photo copy.

One additional claim that I see on the Amazon.com product page that I didn’t see on the package for these Stadtler highlighters is:

• “Large ink reservoir for extra-long highlighting performance”

I have not had these long enough to test out that claim, but by tapping on the side, it does feel as if the entire body is filled with an ink cartridge, so that indicates to me that they may last pretty long.  Overall though, I like how the Staedtler Textsurfer highlighters perform, and its a pretty good price too for 8 highlighters that wont smear your inkjet print out.  I would be happy to hear from anyone who has used these highlighters long enough to speak to the long life claim.

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