Sharing Virtual Whiteboards through Zoom

This guide is intended to demonstrate how to utilize the shared Whiteboard feature while on a Zoom meeting.

Once a user is connected to a Zoom meeting they may be allowed to share their screen with other participants. If you are the host of the meeting you may share your screen at any time. Alternatively, if you are a participant you will have to receive permission to share your screen given to you by the host. Please refer to our Sharing Screen Content through Zoom documentation to fine tune your sharing settings.

The following steps demonstrate how to share a Whiteboard in a Zoom meeting and manage the ability for other participants to annotate the screen in parallel with the host.

Share virtual Whiteboard during a call:

  1. At the bottom of the Zoom meeting window, select the “Share Screen” button. You can also use the keyboard shortcut, Alt+S (Command+Shift+S for Mac) to launch this window.

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              Figure 1: Share Screen Button in main Zoom meeting window.

  2. You will be presented with the “Basic” tab of the screen share window. Select the Whiteboard option.

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              Figure 2: Basic Tab of Screen Share window with Whiteboard option selected.

  3. Once you have selected the Whiteboard option, click the “Share” button in the bottom right corner of the window. The main Zoom meeting window will disappear and a new minimal Zoom menu will be anchored to the top of your newly created virtual Whiteboard.

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              Figure 3: Share Button in Screen Share window.



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              Figure 4: Virtual Whiteboard with editing options and Zoom meeting options at top of screen.

  4. Once the Whiteboard has launched use the Annotation toolbar to select which tool you would like to use to manipulate the Whiteboard. These options include making text boxes, spotlighting certain areas of the canvas and an eraser. You can also use the “Draw” option to create lines, shapes and arrows. There is also a “Save” button that will save the current state of the Whiteboard to your Documents folder.

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              Figure 5: Virtual White Annotation bar and sample annotations.

  5. To stop the sharing of your Whiteboard, click the red “Stop Share” button at the top of the screen. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Alt+S (Command+Shift+S for Mac) to stop sharing content as well.

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              Figure 6: Stop Share button.

Allowing Participants to annotate the virtual Whiteboard

As the meeting host you may determine whether your meeting participants are allowed to annotate the virtual Whiteboard in real-time with you as the host. These steps will show how to manage these permissions.

  1. Once the Whiteboard has been shared navigate to the top of your screen in the Zoom menu options and press “Security”.

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              Figure 7: Zoom meeting window options with Security button highlighted.

  2. Pressing the “Security” button will open a drop down window where you can alter the privileges of the participants. The last of these options in this menu is “Annotate on Shared Content”. If the option has a checkmark next to it the participants can annotate in real time with the meeting host on the virtual Whiteboard. Toggle this checkbox for your desired permission level.

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              Figure 8: Security options in Zoom meeting window for permissions to annotate virtual Whiteboard.