Redline separates a source record, an optional readable source witness, and the annotations you make from it. Each has a deliberate user-initiated capture path and remains in the local vault.
Open the capture panel
Open a normal web page, then choose the Redline toolbar button. Chrome-family browsers use a side panel. Firefox uses its browser sidebar; when a sidebar API is unavailable, Redline can fall back to an extension tab.
You can also use the suggested shortcut Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + Y. Browsers and other extensions can claim the same keys, so use the toolbar if the shortcut is unavailable.
The sidebar opens on Page. Its heading is Capture this page, with a saved or unsaved badge and the current page URL.
Save a source with its context
- Open the source in the active browser tab, then open Redline.
- Choose Page if another sidebar tab is active.
- Review Title, Read status, and Importance.
- Add a Page note, Tags, or one or more Linked dossiers when they will help you find the source again.
- Choose Save changes.
After the first save, the same button updates the page record. Copy URL is always available; Open in Library and Refresh metadata appear for a saved page.
Preserve readable evidence locally
- Use a supported ordinary web page and save its Page record.
- In the sidebar’s Source Witness section, leave Preserve readable evidence locally selected and choose Preview capture. Review the normalized text, readable-block count, estimated stored-text size, and SHA-256 digest.
- Choose Preserve capture. Redline stores the normalized readable blocks and a SHA-256 digest in the local vault; it does not upload the capture.
- To preserve a later version, return to the updated source and use Preview capture and Preserve capture in the sidebar again. Choose Open capture history to inspect the focused comparison in the Page record, choose Open local witness for the capture manifest and offline text, or choose Verify digest to recompute its digest.
The local witness manifest shows source and canonical URLs, capture method, normalization version, stored size, and digest. Preservation always starts in the sidebar; the Library is where you review the resulting history and affected evidence.
Export on a stored witness creates a local JSON file containing that capture and its integrity limitations. It can include the full normalized text and is not a full-vault backup or an importable replacement for All data JSON.
The rendered_text v1 capture uses readable-text-v1 normalization. It excludes scripts, styles, forms, navigation, repeated page chrome, and third-party assets. It does not preserve login state, every network response, a pixel-perfect rendering, or a complete replayable website.
Faster page-save routes
| Route | Exact action | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Sidebar | Page → Save changes | You want to review the title, status, importance, note, tags, or dossiers first. |
| Right-click the page | Redline → Save source | You want an immediate source save without opening an editor. |
| Extension shortcut | Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + S | You want to save the active page immediately, if the browser has accepted the suggested key. |
| Library Dashboard | Quick capture → Source URL → Save | You have a URL to collect but are not currently reading that page. |
The immediate routes do not pause for a note, tags, dossier selection, or citation review. Open Library → Pages and choose the record when you want to enrich it later.
Capture selected text with the floating menu
On a supported page, select a non-empty passage. When Floating selection menu is enabled in the sidebar’s Settings tab, Redline places a compact menu near the selection.
| Button | Annotation type | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| HL | Highlight | Keep wording that matters without making a stronger classification. |
| C | Claim | Record a statement you may need to test or support. |
| S | Source | Mark source evidence or a passage about provenance. |
| Q | Question | Preserve an uncertainty to investigate. |
| FU | Follow-up | Capture work that should continue later. |
Choosing one of these buttons saves immediately. Redline creates or updates the source page record when needed, saves the selected text as an annotation, clears the browser selection, and restores the visible highlight when it can. The floating menu does not open a note or tagging form.
When Redline can map the selection into the page text, it stores the exact wording together with nearby context and a text position. This gives restoration more information if the page changes. If the browser selection cannot be mapped that way, the exact selected text is still retained.
Capture a selection from the right-click menu
Right-click selected text and open the Redline submenu. Selection actions save immediately and then ask the browser to open the capture panel.
- Capture highlight saves a Highlight.
- Capture as… offers Claim, Quote, Source evidence, Follow-up, To-do, Question, and Warning.
- Capture to dossier… saves a Highlight directly to a chosen dossier. The submenu shows up to ten unarchived dossiers, with pinned dossiers first.
A browser context-menu capture supplies the selected wording but not the same live Range information used by the floating menu. Redline can still restore an exact match later, but repeated or changed wording can be more ambiguous. Prefer the floating menu when the strongest available anchoring context matters; use the context menu for an explicit type, direct dossier assignment, or when the floating menu is hidden.
Write a manual finding
Not every useful observation is a quotation. To record your own finding beside the current source:
- Open Redline and choose Annotations.
- Under Capture a finding, choose a Type.
- Enter the required Finding.
- Add optional Context or next step.
- Choose Capture annotation.
The current Page tags and linked dossiers are applied to this manual annotation. If the source has not been saved yet, Redline creates its page record as part of capture. Because a manual finding may not reproduce text that exists on the page, treat it as a research record rather than assuming it will become a restorable visual highlight.
Choose an annotation kind
The full Type list in the sidebar and Library contains eleven kinds. A kind is your classification of the record; it is not a claim that the passage is true.
| Kinds | Good fit |
|---|---|
| Highlight, Quote | Exact wording you want to preserve and revisit. |
| Note, Definition | Your interpretation or an explanation of a term. |
| Claim, Source, Counterpoint | Arguments, provenance, evidence, and competing evidence. |
| Question, Follow Up, Todo | Open questions and concrete next actions. |
| Warning | A caveat, risk, contradiction, or reliability concern. |
Add notes, tags, and dossiers afterward
Quick capture intentionally keeps interruption low. Use the Library when a record needs more context.
- From the sidebar’s Annotations tab, find the item under On this page and choose Open; or open Library → Annotations and select the record.
- Edit Kind, Selected text, Prefix, Suffix, Note, Tags, Dossiers, or Anchor status.
- Choose Save.
Tags and dossier assignments belong to each annotation. A floating or ordinary right-click capture does not automatically inherit the source page’s tags and dossiers. A manual sidebar finding uses the Page values currently shown, while Capture to dossier… applies the dossier you explicitly chose.
Tag entry is token-based: a space, comma, Enter, or Tab commits a tag. Redline lowercases, deduplicates, and sorts tags, so use compact labels such as primary-source rather than a phrase with spaces.
When a saved passage informs a proposition you are assessing, open the annotation and choose Attach as evidence. You can connect it to an existing dossier claim or create a claim without losing the exact quote. Choose Supports, Contradicts, Qualifies, Defines, Supersedes, or Raises question, then add a rationale when the relationship is not self-evident. See the Evidence Compiler guide.
Understand highlight restoration
With Settings → Restore highlights automatically enabled, Redline checks saved annotations for the current URL and tries to locate their text in the live page. Clicking a restored highlight opens a small summary with Open in library.
| Library state | Meaning | Useful response |
|---|---|---|
| Restored | Redline resolved the saved passage against the current page. | No action is normally needed. |
| Needs review | More than one location may match, or the nearby wording no longer agrees well enough. | Compare the saved text with the source and edit the annotation if needed. |
| Unresolved | The saved wording could not be located. | Keep using the stored annotation; open the source to check whether it moved or changed. |
| Unknown | No useful restoration result is recorded yet. | Revisit the live source on a supported page. |
Save linked sources and image references
Redline can collect a destination without opening it first:
- Right-click a link and choose Redline → Save linked source. Redline creates or updates a saved page record for the destination and notes the page it was saved from.
- Right-click an image and choose Redline → Save image reference. Redline saves the image URL as a page record titled Image reference, adds the
imagetag, and notes the page it was saved from.
These commands save references. They do not download the linked page or image bytes, create a readable witness for the destination, or open a separate link or image library. Open the destination on a supported page and explicitly preserve it when its wording matters.
Where capture is limited
- Browser-internal pages, extension settings, new-tab pages, and other protected URLs do not allow ordinary content-script annotation.
- Text inside some embedded viewers or frames may not be available to the top-level page capture tools.
- Reader extraction can be incomplete on highly dynamic, canvas-based, authenticated, paywalled, or application-like pages. Review the preview before preserving.
- A selection must contain non-whitespace text before the floating menu can appear.
- Changing a setting or opening a Library record does not turn the original website into an offline copy.
If a normal page does not show the floating menu, first check Settings → Floating selection menu, make a fresh text selection, and try Redline → Capture highlight from the context menu. See Troubleshooting if capture or restoration still fails.
Practical capture workflows
| Goal | Recommended flow |
|---|---|
| Careful evidence capture | Page → add context → Save changes → select the smallest useful passage → choose a floating-menu type → add an annotation note in the Library. |
| Dossier-first investigation | Link the page to a dossier in Page, then use Capture to dossier… for passages that should be assigned explicitly. |
| Fast reading inbox | Use Save source or the save shortcut, then triage later under Library → Pages. |
| Your own analysis | Use Annotations → Capture a finding; write the conclusion in Finding and the next action in Context or next step. |