Highlight every occurrence of a list of words?

Question

In order to revise a draft, and identify related sections, I would like to identify similar words (by color of text, highlight, underline, or otherwise) according to topic.

For example, I would like all uses of the terms "foo" or "bar" highlighted red and all uses of "biz" and "baz" highlighted green.

There might be four or five groups of words or word roots that I want to specify. This is only for revision, so it can be rather crude.

For example, replace this:

with this:

(In the example, it is hard to see the green text; perhaps bold+color or underline would be more useful)

Update A related question provides an answer using XeLaTex. My document does not compile with XeLaTex, I would prefer a solution compatible with pdflatex if available (since that is what I use), though my document also compiles with luatex.

Other related questions:

• Macro: Replace all occurrences of a word (answer is not generic - requires seven lines per string to be replaced)
• automatically apply special formatting to selected words in text (only provides xelatex solution)
• Automatically highlight words from a predefined list (uses chickenize, replaces string but does not add color)

Answer 1

Solution using LuaTeX callbacks. Library luacolor.lua from luacolor is also used.

First package luahighlight.sty:

\ProvidesPackage{luahighlight}
%\RequirePackage{luacolor}
\@ifpackageloaded{xcolor}{}{\RequirePackage{xcolor}}
\RequirePackage{luatexbase}
\RequirePackage{luacode}
\newluatexattribute\luahighlight
\begin{luacode*}
highlight = require "highlight"
luatexbase.add_to_callback("pre_linebreak_filter", highlight.callback, "higlight")
\end{luacode*}

\newcommand\highlight[2][red]{
  \bgroup
  \color{#1}
  \luaexec{highlight.add_word("\luatexluaescapestring{\current@color}","\luatexluaescapestring{#2}")}
  \egroup
}

% save default document color
\luaexec{highlight.default_color("\luatexluaescapestring{\current@color}")}

% stolen from luacolor.sty
\def\luacolorProcessBox#1{%
  \luaexec{%
    oberdiek.luacolor.process(\number#1)%
  }%
}

% process a page box
\RequirePackage{atbegshi}[2011/01/30]
\AtBeginShipout{%
  \luacolorProcessBox\AtBeginShipoutBox
}
\endinput

command \highlight is provided, with one required and one optional parameters. required is highlighted word, optional is color. In pre_linebreak_filter callback, words are collected and when matched, color information is inserted.

Lua module, highlight.lua:

local M = {}

require "luacolor"

local words = {}
local chars = {}

-- get attribute allocation number and register it in luacolor
local attribute = luatexbase.attributes.luahighlight
-- local attribute = oberdiek.luacolor.getattribute
oberdiek.luacolor.setattribute(attribute)


-- make local version of luacolor.get

local get_color = oberdiek.luacolor.getvalue

-- we must save default color
local default_color 

function M.default_color(color)
  default_color = get_color(color)
end

local utflower = unicode.utf8.lower
function M.add_word(color,w)
  local w = utflower(w)
  words[w] = color
end

local utfchar = unicode.utf8.char

-- we don't want to include punctation
local stop = {}
for _, x in ipairs {".",",","!","“","”","?"} do stop[x] = true end


function M.callback(head)
  local curr_text = {}
  local curr_nodes = {}
  for n in node.traverse(head) do
    if n.id == 37 then
      local char = utfchar(n.char)
      -- exclude punctation
      if not stop[char] then 
        local lchar = chars[char] or utflower(char)
        chars[char] = lchar
        curr_text[#curr_text+1] = lchar 
        curr_nodes[#curr_nodes+1] = n
      end
      -- set default color
      local current_color = node.has_attribute(n,attribute) or default_color
      node.set_attribute(n, attribute,current_color)
    elseif n.id == 10  then
      local word = table.concat(curr_text)
      curr_text = {}
      local color = words[word]
      if color then
        print(word)
        local colornumber = get_color(color)
        for _, x in ipairs(curr_nodes) do
          node.set_attribute(x,attribute,colornumber)
        end
      end
      curr_nodes = {}
    end
  end
  return head
end


return M

we use pre_linebreak_filter callback to traverse the node list, we collect the glyph nodes (id 37) in a table and when we find a glue node (id 10, mainly spaces), we construct a word from collected glyphs. We have some prohibited characters (such as punctuation), which we strip out. All characters are lowercased, so we can detect even words at the beginning of sentences etc.

When a word is matched, we set attribute field of word glyphs to value under which is related color saved in luacolor library. Attributed are new concept in LuaTeX, they enable to store information in nodes, which can be processed later, as in our case, because at the shipout time, ale pages are processed by the luacolor library and nodes are colored, depending on their luahighlight attribute.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[pdftex]{xcolor}
\usepackage{luahighlight}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\highlight[red]{Lorem}
\highlight[green]{dolor}
\highlight[orange]{world}
\highlight[blue]{Curabitur}
\highlight[brown]{elit}
\begin{document}

\def\world{earth}
\section{Hello world}

Hello world, world? world! \textcolor{purple}{but normal colors works} too\footnote{And also footnotes, for instance. World WORLD wOrld}. Hello \world.

\lipsum[1-12]
\end{document}

Answer 2

Here's another with l3regex.

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{xcolor,xparse,l3regex}
\ExplSyntaxOn
\NewDocumentCommand \texthighlight { +m } { \david_texthighlight:n { #1 } }
\cs_new_protected:Npn \david_texthighlight:n #1
 {
  \group_begin:
  \tl_set:Nn \l_tmpa_tl { #1 }
  \seq_map_inline:Nn \g_david_highlight_colors_seq
   {
    \clist_map_inline:cn { g_david_highlight_##1_clist }
     {
      \regex_replace_all:nnN { (\W)####1(\W) }
       { \1\c{textcolor}\cB\{##1\cE\}\cB\{####1\cE\}\2 } \l_tmpa_tl
     }
   }
  \tl_use:N \l_tmpa_tl
  \group_end:
 }
\seq_new:N \g_david_highlight_colors_seq
\NewDocumentCommand \addhighlighting { O{red} m }
 {
  \seq_if_in:NnF \g_david_highlight_colors_seq { #1 }
   { \seq_gput_right:Nn \g_david_highlight_colors_seq { #1 } }
  \clist_if_exist:cF { g_david_highlight_#1_clist }
   { \clist_new:c { g_david_highlight_#1_clist } }
  \clist_gput_right:cn { g_david_highlight_#1_clist } { #2 }
 }
\ExplSyntaxOff

\addhighlighting{amet,Mauris,ut,et,leo}
\addhighlighting[blue]{Phasellus,vestibulum}

\begin{document}
\texthighlight{Lorem ipsum dolor foo sit amet, bar consectetuer adipiscing
elit. Ut purus elit, vestibulum ut, placerat ac, adipiscing vitae, felis.
Curabitur dictum gravida mauris. Nam arcu libero, nonummy eget,
consectetuer id, vulputate a, magna. Donec vehicula augue eu
neque. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et
malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Mauris ut leo. Cras viverra metus
rhoncus sem. Nulla et lectus foo vestibulum urna fringilla ultrices.
Phasellus eu tellus sit amet tortor gravida placerat. Integer sapien
est, iaculis in, pretium quis, viverra ac, nunc. Praesent eget sem
vel leo ultrices bibendum. Aenean faucibus. Morbi dolor nulla,
malesuada eu, pulvinar at, mollis ac, nulla. Curabitur auctor semper
nulla. Donec varius orci eget risus. Duis nibh mi, congue eu,
accumsan eleifend, bar sagittis quis, diam. Duis eget orci sit amet orci
dignissim rutrum.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Ut
purus elit, vestibulum ut, placerat ac, adipiscing vitae, felis. Curabitur
dictum gravida mauris. Nam arcu libero, nonummy eget,
consectetuer id, foo vulputate a, magna. Donec vehicula augue eu
neque. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et
malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Mauris ut leo. Cras viverra metus
rhoncus sem. Nulla et lectus vestibulum urna fringilla ultrices.
Phasellus eu tellus sit amet tortor gravida placerat. Integer sapien
est, iaculis in, pretium quis, viverra ac, bar nunc. Praesent eget sem
vel leo ultrices bibendum. Aenean faucibus. Morbi dolor nulla,
malesuada eu, pulvinar at, mollis ac, nulla. Curabitur auctor semper
nulla. Donec varius orci eget risus. Duis nibh mi, congue eu,
accumsan eleifend, sagittis quis, diam. Duis eget orci sit amet orci
dignissim rutrum.}
\end{document}

Answer 3

ConTeXt provides a proof of concept module for such translations: m-translate. You could use it to translate text, but the translation takes place before macro expansion. So, the method will fail if the translation string is part of a macro name.

The translation can be enabled and disabled using \enableinputtranstion and \disableinputtranslation. Here is an example, which a little wrapper macro for ease of input.

\usemodule[translate]

\define\defineautocoloring
    {\dodoubleargument\dodefineautocoloring}

\def\dodefineautocoloring[#1][#2]%
    {\def\dododefineautocoloring##1%
          {\translateinput[##1][{\color[#1]{##1}}]}%
     \processcommalist[#2]\dododefineautocoloring}

\defineautocoloring[red][foo, bar]
\defineautocoloring[blue][color]

\setuppapersize[A5]

\starttext

\enableinputtranslation

This is a foo example of coloring random bar text. What is foobar? The
translation is done before macro expansion, so weird stuff can happen:

\type{foobar}

\disableinputtranslation

This is a foo example of coloring random bar text. What is foobar? The
translation is done before macro expansion, so weird stuff can happen:

\type{foobar}

\stoptext

which gives

Answer 4

Strongly based on my answer at How to insert a symbol to the beginning of a line for which a word appears?. However, I had to extend the logic to handle multiple color assignments. Syntax is multiple invocations of \WordsToNote{space separated list}{color} and then \NoteWords{multiple paragraph input}

Macros in the input are limited to style (e.g., \textit) and size (e.g., \small) changes. Otherwise, only plain text is accepted.

As detailed in the referenced answer, I adapt my titlecaps package, which normally capitalizes the first letter of each word in its argument, with a user-specified list of exceptions. Here, instead of capitalizing the words, I leave them intact. However, I trap the user-specified word exceptions and use them to set a different color.

In this extension of that method, I had to revise two titlecaps macros: \titlecap and \seek@lcwords.

The method cannot handle word subsets, but it can ignore punctuation.

EDITED to fix bug when flagged word appears with punctuation, and issue with first word of paragraphs.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{titlecaps}
\makeatletter
\renewcommand\titlecap[2][P]{%
  \digest@sizes%
  \if T\converttilde\def~{ }\fi%
  \redefine@tertius%
  \get@argsC{#2}%
  \seek@lcwords{#1}%
  \if P#1%
    \redefine@primus%
    \get@argsC{#2}%
    \protected@edef\primus@argi{\argi}%
  \else%
  \fi%
  \setcounter{word@count}{0}%
  \redefine@secundus%
  \def\@thestring{}%
  \get@argsC{#2}%
  \if P#1\protected@edef\argi{\primus@argi}\fi%
  \whiledo{\value{word@count} < \narg}{%
    \addtocounter{word@count}{1}%
    \if F\csname found@word\roman{word@count}\endcsname%
      \notitle@word{\csname arg\roman{word@count}\endcsname}%
      \expandafter\protected@edef\csname%
           arg\roman{word@count}\endcsname{\@thestring}%
    \else
      \notitle@word{\csname arg\roman{word@count}\endcsname}%
      \expandafter\protected@edef\csname%
         arg\roman{word@count}\endcsname{\color{%
           \csname color\romannumeral\value{word@count}\endcsname}%
      \@thestring\color{black}{}}%
    \fi%
  }%
  \def\@thestring{}%
  \setcounter{word@count}{0}%
  \whiledo{\value{word@count} < \narg}{%
    \addtocounter{word@count}{1}%
    \ifthenelse{\value{word@count} = 1}%
   {}{\add@space}%
    \protected@edef\@thestring{\@thestring%
      \csname arg\roman{word@count}\endcsname}%
  }%
  \let~\SaveHardspace%
  \@thestring%
  \restore@sizes%
\un@define}

% SEARCH TERTIUS CONVERTED ARGUMENT FOR LOWERCASE WORDS, SET FLAG
% FOR EACH WORD (T = FOUND IN LIST, F= NOT FOUND IN LIST)
\renewcommand\seek@lcwords[1]{%
\kill@punct%
  \setcounter{word@count}{0}%
  \whiledo{\value{word@count} < \narg}{%
    \addtocounter{word@count}{1}%
    \protected@edef\current@word{%
      \csname arg\romannumeral\value{word@count}\endcsname}%
    \def\found@word{F}%
    \setcounter{lcword@index}{0}%
    \expandafter\def\csname%
            found@word\romannumeral\value{word@count}\endcsname{F}%
    \whiledo{\value{lcword@index} < \value{lc@words}}{%
      \addtocounter{lcword@index}{1}%
      \protected@edef\current@lcword{%
        \csname lcword\romannumeral\value{lcword@index}\endcsname}%
%% THE FOLLOWING THREE LINES ARE FROM DAVID CARLISLE
  \protected@edef\tmp{\noexpand\scantokens{\def\noexpand\tmp%
   {\noexpand\ifthenelse{\noexpand\equal{\current@word}{\current@lcword}}}}}%
  \tmp\ifhmode\unskip\fi\tmp
%%
      {\expandafter\def\csname%
            found@word\romannumeral\value{word@count}\endcsname{T}%
      \expandafter\protected@edef\csname color\romannumeral\value{word@count}\endcsname{%
       \csname CoLoR\csname lcword\romannumeral\value{lcword@index}\endcsname\endcsname}%
      \setcounter{lcword@index}{\value{lc@words}}%
      }%
      {}%
    }%
  }%
\if P#1\def\found@wordi{F}\fi%
\restore@punct%
}
\makeatother
\usepackage{xcolor}
\newcommand\WordsToNote[2]{\Addlcwords{#1}\edef\assignedcolor{#2}%
  \assigncolor#1 \relax\relax}
\def\assigncolor#1 #2\relax{%
  \expandafter\edef\csname CoLoR#1\endcsname{\assignedcolor}%
  \ifx\relax#2\else\assigncolor#2\relax\fi%
}
\newcommand\NoteWords[1]{\NoteWordsHelp#1\par\relax}
\long\def\NoteWordsHelp#1\par#2\relax{%
  \titlecap[p]{#1}%
  \ifx\relax#2\else\par\NoteWordsHelp#2\relax\fi%
}
\begin{document}
\WordsToNote{foo bar at}{red}
\WordsToNote{Nulla dolor nulla}{cyan}
\WordsToNote{amet est et}{orange}
\WordsToNote{Lorem Ut ut felis}{green}
\NoteWords{
\textbf{Lorem ipsum dolor foo sit amet, bar consectetuer adipiscing elit}. Ut
purus elit, vestibulum ut, placerat ac, adipiscing vitae, felis. Curabitur
dictum gravida mauris. Nam arcu libero, nonummy eget,
consectetuer id, vulputate a, magna. Donec vehicula augue eu
neque. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et
malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Mauris ut leo. Cras viverra metus
rhoncus sem. \textit{Nulla et lectus foo} vestibulum urna fringilla ultrices.
Phasellus eu tellus sit amet tortor gravida placerat. Integer sapien
est, iaculis in, pretium quis, viverra ac, nunc. Praesent eget sem
vel leo ultrices bibendum. \scshape Aenean faucibus. Morbi dolor nulla,
malesuada eu, pulvinar at, mollis ac, nulla. Curabitur auctor semper
nulla. Donec varius orci eget risus. \upshape Duis nibh mi, congue eu,
accumsan eleifend, bar sagittis quis, diam. Duis eget orci sit amet orci
dignissim rutrum.

\textsf{Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet}, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Ut
purus elit, vestibulum ut, placerat ac, adipiscing vitae, felis. Curabitur
dictum gravida mauris. Nam arcu libero, nonummy eget,
consectetuer id, foo vulputate a, magna. Donec vehicula augue eu
neque. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et
malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Mauris ut leo. Cras viverra metus
rhoncus sem. Nulla et lectus vestibulum urna fringilla ultrices.
Phasellus eu tellus sit amet tortor gravida placerat. Integer sapien
est, iaculis in, pretium quis, viverra ac, bar nunc. Praesent eget sem
vel leo ultrices bibendum. Aenean faucibus. Morbi dolor nulla,
malesuada eu, pulvinar at, mollis ac, nulla. Curabitur auctor semper
nulla. Donec varius orci eget risus. Duis nibh mi, congue eu,
accumsan eleifend, sagittis quis, diam. \Large Duis eget orci sit amet orci
dignissim rutrum.\normalsize
}
\end{document}

Answer 5

Here's a simple script that will mark up words that you specify by editing the script-- it was the simplest way to handle lots of words and lots of different colors. It requires perl, which is standard on Unix (Linux/OS X) and a single download away on Windows. I'm assuming you have lots and lots of keywords to mark, so I've used perl which makes it easy to manage lists. Save it as a file highlight.pl, enter your keywords, and run it like this (commandline):

perl highlight.pl document.tex > edited-document.tex

The script builds lists of space-separated words with qw(...). If you need to highlight multi-word spans, ask me to add an example of the appropriate syntax. You can set it up for any number of colors. Note also that the words will be combined into a regular expression, so you could use wildcards if needed.

#!/usr/bin/perl 

# Enter all the keys to highlight here, separated by whitespace. The lists
# can extend over any number of lines. 
$keywords = join("|", qw(foo bar));
$trouble = join("|", qw(
biz 
baz
));

while (<>) {
      if (m/\\begin\{document\}/..m/\\end\{document\}/) {
         s/\b($keywords)\b/\\keyword{$1}/g;
         s/\b($trouble)\b/\\needswork{$1}/g;
      }
      print;
}

The script will skip the preamble and substitute only in the body of the document. I demonstrate with two kinds of highlighting, \keyword{..} and \needswork{...}. What they do is up to you; use whatever macro names you want, and define them in your document's preamble.

Answer 6

Having answered a related question, Automatically highlighting nominalizations (a.k.a. zombie nouns) as a writing aid, I realized the listofitems could also perform this task rather simply.

UPDATE for handling capitalization and punctuation.

The item list is parsed on three levels: first by designated key words, then by spaces, and finally by designated punctuation. We loop through the list arising from the 1st level of parsing. Text between the key words is output in the raw (see \x in the \colorize macro). Then, each keyword that is parsed has to be analyzed: the \if\relax\thewords[,,]\relax tests determine if the keyword is surrounded by either a space or any designated punctuation to the left and right sides. If so, the keyword is output in colorized form. However if not, it means the keyword was part of a larger word (like "boo" inside of "TeXbook") and is thus excluded from colorization.

The key for building the parse list and designating the colors is the \setcolor{<word>}{<color>} macro. For a word like foo, It creates a macro \foocolor that will hold the designated color for foo. Also, if foo is the first word designated it appends the parselist with foo, otherwise it appends the parselist with ||foo. It also repeats the process for the capitalized version of the word. This means, for this example, the final \theparselist becomes {foo||Foo||bar||Bar||baz||Baz||biz||Biz} which is the listofitems syntax for parsing any of those 4 words on the 1st level.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{listofitems,xcolor}
\newcounter{colorwords}
\newcommand\colorize[1]{%
  \expandafter\setsepchar\expandafter{\theparselist/ /,||.||!||?||;||:||-}%
  \reademptyitems%
  \greadlist\thewords{#1}%
  \foreachitem\x\in\thewords[]{%
    \x%
    \ifnum\xcnt<\listlen\thewords[]\relax%
      \if\relax\thewords[\xcnt,-1,-1]\relax%
        \if\relax\thewords[\the\numexpr\xcnt+1,1,1]\relax%
          \textcolor{\csname\thewordssep[\xcnt]color\endcsname}{\thewordssep[\xcnt]}%
        \else%
          \thewordssep[\xcnt]%
        \fi%
      \else%
        \thewordssep[\xcnt]%
      \fi%
    \fi%
  }%
}
\def\theparselist{}
\makeatletter
\newcommand\setcolor[2]{%
  \stepcounter{colorwords}%
  \ifnum\value{colorwords}=1\g@addto@macro\theparselist{#1}\else%
    \g@addto@macro\theparselist{||#1}\fi
  \expandafter\def\csname#1color\endcsname{#2}%
  \edef\thestring{\Capitalize#1\relax}%
  \g@addto@macro\theparselist{||}
  \expandafter\g@addto@macro\expandafter\theparselist\expandafter{\thestring}
  \expandafter\def\csname\thestring color\endcsname{#2}%
}
\makeatother
\def\Capitalize#1#2\relax{%
  \ifcase\numexpr`#1-`a\relax
   A\or B\or C\or D\or E\or F\or G\or H\or I\or J\or K\or L\or M\or
   N\or O\or P\or Q\or R\or S\or T\or U\or V\or W\or X\or Y\or Z\else
   #1\fi#2%
}
\begin{document}
\setcolor{foo}{red}
\setcolor{bar}{blue!70}
\setcolor{baz}{cyan}
\setcolor{biz}{green!70!black}
\colorize{Lorem ipsum dolor foo sit amet bar: consectetuer adipiscing elit baz! Ut purus elit,
vestibulum ut, placerat ac, adipiscing vitae, felis. Baz curabitur baz dictum gravida
mauris. Nam  biz arcu libero, nonummy eget, consectetuer id, vulputate a, bar magna.
Donec vehicula augue eu neque. foox xfoo ,foo foo, foo. xfoox meta -foo meta-foo
foo-bar.}
\end{document}

An expanded version of this answer, to handle searches for intra-word phrases, in addition to the "whole-word" phrases of this answer, can be found here: Change color of all occurences of particular character in entire document.