Temporarily hide all existing essay highlights:
- Mac: press and hold the COMMAND button on the keyboard
- Windows: press and hold CONTROL

Why is this useful?
Normally once a sentence is commented on its highlight blocks any further text selection. Clicking on highlighted text such as:

...brings up the comment associated with the highlight:


..but prevents you from selecting that text to create a new free comment.

But if you press and hold CMD on Mac or CTRL on Windows, all essay highlights temporarily disappear for as long as you hold CMD/CTRL.

This allows you to select the underlying text in order to create a new free comment:

When you release CMD/CTRL the highlights will reappear. Once you save your new free comment, it will appear just like any other comment in the essay: