5. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising a mechanism for automatically enabling, disabling and adjusting the selective highlighting according to actions of the human reader in browsing the electronic document when the electronic document is displayed.
1. An apparatus comprising: at least one processor; a memory coupled to the at least one processor; an electronic document residing in the memory; an automatic document processing mechanism residing in the memory and executed by the at least one processor, the automatic document processing mechanism processing the electronic document and automatically producing selective highlighting for at least a portion of the electronic document to enhance the comprehension of the electronic document by a human reader, the automatic document processing mechanism determining which portions of the electronic document to selectively highlight based on user preferences that include a specification of at least one word in the electronic document that triggers highlighting of a corresponding portion of the electronic document, the automatic document processing mechanism including: a display mechanism that displays the selective highlighting in a display of the electronic document without altering the electronic document; and a conversion mechanism that generates a new electronic document that includes all information in the electronic document and additionally includes at least one markup language tag that specifies to the automatic document processing mechanism how to perform at least a portion of the selective highlighting of the new electronic document.