Avery Smearsafe Highlighters
These Avery Smearsafe Hi-Liters are smear resistant highlighters that come in four standard colors, yellow, pink, orange, and purple. At first glance when I saw these highlighters I was not immediately impressed because quite honestly, the packaging and the design of the highlighters themselves look a little bit older, but when I saw that they were supposed to work well with ink jet print, I was sold.
Avery Smearsafe Highlighter Bodies
The bodies on these smear resistant highlighters are pretty chunky, which I like in my highlighters, however the somewhat conical ends, and clear hard plastic caps give them a little bit of an 80s look to me. In the case of these highlighters though, they were not designed to impress your cube mates with how they look, they were designed to lay down a nice line of highlighter ink on your freshly printed inkjet documents without smearing them.
Avery Smearsafe Highlighter Grip and Clip
Now although I am admittedly not a big fan of the way these smear resistant highlighters look, I am a big fan of how they feel in the hand. The nice thick and rubber coated grip has a slight hourglass shape to it and nice thick grooves to help you hold on. The cap slides smoothly and very far over the back of the highlighter for a fit that makes you confident that it is not going to shake or wiggle off. The clips are a nice sturdy metal and seem like they will hold up well to being clipped onto whatever notebook cover or binding you tend to put things on.
Avery Smearsafe Highlighter Writing Sample on a print out of one of my favorite websites, The Amateur Economist
So in order to really give these smear resistant highlighters a test, I printed the above sample from one of my favorite websites, The Amateur Economist, and I slapped the tip of the highlighter onto the print as quickly as I could after my printer (an Epson Artisan 800) spit it out. To my surprise, the inkjet print didn’t even give a hint of wanting to smear, so I later passed over it two more times…still no smearing. Now that the ink was really starting to dry, I took a shot with all of the colors and ran over some text 8-12 times, and it was not until the 12th pass where it even gave a hint of smearing the ink. VERY impressive in my eyes. If you look at the scan above, you can see the light pink highlighting and my hand written notes towards the bottom left. Keep in mind when you look at the highlighting sample that in person, the highlighter leaves a much brighter layer of ink behind, for whatever reason the scan waters down the actual intensity.
I think these Avery Smearsafe Hi-Liters are a must have for anyone who does highlighting of smear-prone inks, the only issues you might have is that they only appear to come in the four colors that I’ve shown you here, and they do warn that high levels of humidity may impact the smear proof performance.
An Update for Commenter Bill W.:
Here is a second test as requested by Bill W. I printed the same page and used two different brand highlighters that are not marketed as being smear resistant highlighters. The bottom two lines are my test with one pass immediately after printing, the two lines above were done seconds later and with three passes. You can see that the first test on the bottom lines with one pass show no problems, and the second set of lines when I passed over the text three times really started to show the smearing. Also, something that I should have pointed out in the original review is that the paper I used is HP Premium Choice 32lb Laser Jet Paper. And yes, I know it is laser jet not ink jet paper that I am using in my ink jet printer, but I just really like the paper, its super high quality and handles the ink jet ink pretty well.
These are very good highlighters, I agree. Haven’t seen the other colors in stores near me, though…They last a VERY long time (yellow does).
I wish Avery still made the marking crayon type of highlighters–those did not bleed through, which most DO these days. These Averys though have less bleed thru than Sharpies…
@HowardNJ – Thanks for the insight on the longevity, I’ve only had these for about two weeks, and I dont always get to use things for a long enough period of time to get a good feel for how long they will last.
I’ve been kind of half looking into some of the dry-lighters that you mention, but I have no had time to do enough research to find one that I think might be worth picking up.
Just discovered this site a day ago–I think it’s awesome–and had a quick question. What are your thoughts on the Parker Jotter? I didn’t see it anywhere on the website under ball point pen reviews, so I’m assuming you don’t have a review of it. I’ve been in love with them for about 5 years now and just wanted your opinion.
Thanks!
First off…..Great Site!
Second….Could I ask you to perform one other test with these highlighters? Start out the same, in that you highlight the print right out of the printer, only this time, can you show a comparison to another “non-smear proof” highlighter. The reason I ask, is that I recently had to get rid of my Epson printer (which I loved) and thought I’d try a Lexmark (for a variety of reasons, most importantly was the fact that it only cost me $60 because of some savvy shopping). My Epson (Stylus CX4800) was 5years old and I never had any issues with highlighter smudging. On the other hand, the Lexmark (Prospect Pro205) is 5 days old and I’m already frustrated with the smearing.
@Steve Q – You are correct, I have not reviewed the Parker Jotter, although I know it is a really popular pen. I tend not to enjoy ballpoint pens so much, which is why I have not really gotten around to reviewing one of them.
@Bill W – Thanks so much, glad you are enjoying the site.
Great idea, I can definitely do that test and post the results here for you. Should be able to do it and update this post sometime Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.
Might want to compare highlighters in a future review.
eg. Which ones are the most vivid yellow?
Which ones smear the most?
Which ones bleed through the most?
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At least for vividness, I find the Sharpie Accent Highlighter with Smear Guard is more vivid than the Bic Brite Liner Liquid Highlighter.
Thanks for the feedback, I like this idea. I just have to figure out a way to get my scanner to cooperate, highlighters just dont seem to scan well or bright at all.
How about comparing highlighters drying time. I am in college and have books where the pages range from thick shiny paper to thin Bible-like pages. The AVERY Hi-Liter seems to dry much faster than any of the dozens of highlighters I own. They are not a BRITE/BRIGHT – but that makes it easier on my eyes 🙂
I really get aggravated when I highlight on a page then turn to the next page to read and when I flip back to the highlighted page, it has tranferred to the page before it. It makes for a great deal of irritation for me. I dont like highlighters that have slow dry times or that bleed. In fact on my Med-Surg book that has Bible thin pages, I am using Sharpie Gel Highlighters, I dont care for them as their tips are too wide/fat and you can not be precise on your highlighting… UGH … the ugliness…
Thanks