When you’re in the office, it’s easy to visualize and develop ideas with a felt-tip pen on a white­board. Brain­storm­ing together in a team leads to new trains of thought and enables you to put ideas into clearly un­der­stand­able form. Just because your Zoom meeting is virtual, it doesn’t mean that you can’t brain­storm together. With the Zoom white­board, you and the other par­tic­i­pants can work on your ideas together.

Share a Zoom white­board: Quick in­struc­tions

  1. Start a Zoom meeting.
  2. Click on “Share Screen” or “Share”.
  3. Select the “White­board” option and share the Zoom white­board using the button of the same name.
Image: Screen sharing with Zoom whiteboard option
You create the Zoom white­board using screen sharing.

What is the Zoom white­board?

The Zoom white­board is a virtual white space that you share with other par­tic­i­pants in a meeting or team. It enables you to write down, draw, and design ideas using Zoom’s drawing tools. The advantage over a physical white­board is that you can save your drafts and results after a brain­storm­ing session, copy them, and work on them later.

The Zoom white­board can only be shared by the meeting host. Par­tic­i­pants who join a Zoom meeting are therefore dependent on the host ac­ti­vat­ing the white­board function and sharing the screen or al­ter­na­tive­ly trans­fer­ring the sharing rights to other par­tic­i­pants.

How do you share a Zoom white­board with other par­tic­i­pants?

Just like screen sharing, white­board sharing is not com­pli­cat­ed at all. Follow these steps to share and edit a Zoom white­board.

In the desktop app

  • Step 1: Log in to the desktop app and create a Zoom meeting.
  • Step 2: Click “Share Screen” in the bottom menu bar.
  • Step 3: The screen sharing settings menu will open. Here you can select windows, documents, or files for screen sharing. Select “White­board” and then click “Share”.
  • Step 4: You can now edit the white­board as you wish. Tools for writing, drawing, and various stamps can also be found in the toolbar. New pages can be added with the plus symbol in the bottom right. You can turn pages using the arrows in the menu at the bottom of the page.
  • Step 5: Other par­tic­i­pants must click “Annotate” at the top of their screen to be able to write or draw on the shared white­board.
  • Step 6: By clicking on “Clear”, you can either delete all drawings, only your drawings, or only the drawings of others.
  • Step 7: To save the white­board once it’s full of notes or drawings, select the “Save” option in the toolbar. If you click on the arrow symbol, you have the choice between PGN or PDF formats.
  • Step 8: When you have finished working on the white­board, click “Stop Share”.
Image: Blank Zoom whiteboard with design options
You can write, paint, and draw shapes on the Zoom white­board.

In the mobile app

  • Step 1: Open the mobile app.
  • Step 2: Press “Share Content” in the menu bar.
  • Step 3: In the following window, scroll down, and tap on “White­board”.
Image: Option to launch a Zoom whiteboard in the iPad app.
In the “Share Content” option, you will also find the Zoom white­board.
  • Step 4: The white­board with the menu bar will now open. If the menu bar dis­ap­pears, briefly tap the screen to make it visible again.
  • Step 5: To open the toolbar with writing and drawing tools, tap the “pen” icon.
  • Step 6: If you want to save a Zoom white­board, tap “...”. You have the choice to save the drawing in an album or to open another white­board.
  • Step 7: Tap “Stop Share” to close the white­board.
Image: Blank Zoom whiteboard in the iPad app
In the iPad app, you can draw on the digital white­board with your fingers.

What features does the Zoom white­board offer?

The Zoom white­board works similarly to Paint in Windows due to its white drawing and design surface. The features include various tools and utilities that you and other par­tic­i­pants can use to capture and visualize thoughts. The Zoom white­board offers the following tools:

  • Text (writing)
  • Drawing (various lines)
  • Stamps (e.g., stars, hearts, arrows, question marks)
  • Eraser
  • Color selection
  • Undo
  • Restore
  • Delete
  • Save
Tip

For a digital brain­storm­ing session you don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly have to rely on Zoom. There are numerous Zoom al­ter­na­tives such as Skype and Microsoft Teams that also make creative col­lab­o­ra­tion possible in a virtual con­fer­ence room.

Which sharing options does the Zoom white­board offer?

As the meeting host, you can not only share the white­board with other par­tic­i­pants in the meeting, but also allow multiple users to share the white­board at the same time. To do this, press the arrow symbol next to “Share Screen” in the menu bar in the current meeting. A menu will open where you can allow sharing for an in­di­vid­ual or for several par­tic­i­pants at the same time. Under “Advanced Sharing Options”, the host can also allow all other par­tic­i­pants to share the white­board.

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