iPad notes: highlight in colour?

Unfortunately there is currently no way to highlight text in the default Notes App on an iPad. While you can add some formatting, like bolding, and heading type, there is no option for highlighting.

You may want to try a different Note Taking App from the App Store.

This WAS an option in Mac OS X and the highlighted text showed up in synched iOS devices however it seems even that has been removed.

The Notes App can handle some special formatting like highlights if you copy and paste text that contains this formatting from another App. It will in many cases preserve the highlight and show it.

But there is no option to add this formatting to the text from within the Notes App itself.

If you need more specialized formatting option, maybe try Pages instead of Notes.

Notes is meant to be a simple note taking App, not a full fledged Word processor with every formatting option.