# How to return highlight as an html instead of string?
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-return-highlight-as-an-html-instead-of-string/239892
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [July 4, 2020, 2:01pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-return-highlight-as-an-html-instead-of-string/239892 "2020-07-04T14:01:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@NikolaP93](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/NikolaP93)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2020, 2:01pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-return-highlight-as-an-html-instead-of-string/239892/1 "2020-07-04T14:01:51Z")
So I have a problem , I created a custom highlight like so:
```auto
customHighlight={() => ({
highlight: {
pre_tags: [''],
post_tags: [''],
fields: {
text: {},
title: {},
},
number_of_fragments: 0,
},
})}
```
However, my search results return this
`Blast from the past`
Why is this not returned as HTML, but rather as a string?
```auto
```
---
### Author:  [@Mark\_Harwood](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Mark_Harwood)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2020, 8:32am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-return-highlight-as-an-html-instead-of-string/239892/2 "2020-07-07T08:32:14Z")
Hi Nikola,
> [@NikolaP93](#):
>
> Why is this not returned as HTML, but rather as a string?
If you mean why doesn't it have `` at the top it's because the assumption is an HTML snippet for embedding in a page is considered more useful than a page.
We typically return multiple results so snippets make more sense. We make no guarantees about what original text we highlight either e.g. if it's full of naughty `