
Sharing your screen is one of the most valuable features of Zoom. It allows you to easily present, use the whiteboard, or share videos with your group. This guide will show you how to share your screen and use the whiteboard tool.
Starting a screen share
1. Click the Share Screen button located in your task bar.
2. Select one of these screen share options:
- Basic: Share your entire desktop, specific application windows, whiteboard, or iPhone/iPad screen. Hold the Shift key (macOS) or the Ctrl key (Windows) to select more than one application.
- Note: Users can select multiple desktop programs at once instead of sharing their entire desktop, but all selected programs must be on the same screen to be visible.
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Advanced
- Slides / PowerPoint as Virtual Background: Allows you to utilize a slideshow presentation as your virtual background, providing a more immersive presentation.
- Portion of Screen: Share a portion of your screen represented by a green border. The border can be adjusted as needed during the share by clicking and dragging any side or corner.
- Computer Audio: Only share your computer's audio (your selected speaker in your audio settings). Select the down arrow to the right of Computer Audio option to view audio options and switch between Mono and Stereo (high fidelity) audio options.
- Video: Share locally stored video content through Zoom's native video player.
- Content from 2nd Camera: Share a secondary camera connected to your computer; for example, a document camera or the integrated camera on your laptop.
- Files: Share a file from a third-party sharing service like Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive. Follow the on-screen prompts to sign in to the third-party service and grant Zoom access.
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Notes:
- These options may be disabled by account Admins, so available options may vary.
- Alternatively, you can open the file in a web browser then share the browser window. For example, to share a Google Doc, open the Doc in Chrome, then share the Chrome window. The end result is the same as using the sharing options in the Files tab.
Note: If you are sharing a video clips, check these boxes for optimal sharing.
Video Clip Features:
Share Computer Sound: if you check this option, any sound played by your computer will be shared in the meeting.
Optimize for full screen video clip: Check this if you will be sharing a video clip in full screen mode. Do not check this otherwise, as it may cause the shared screen to be blurry.
3. Click Share.
Share screen menu
When you start sharing your screen, the meeting controls will move into a menu that you can drag around your screen. Here you will be presented with control options for your shared content. When clicking the more button a sub menu will drop down with additional options.


- Mute/Unmute: Mute or unmute your microphone.
- Start/Stop Video: Start or stop your in-meeting video.
- Security: Access in-meeting security options.
- Participants: View or manage the participants (if you're the host).
- Click the down arrow to access Invite, where you can invite others to join the meeting.
- Polling: Allows you to create, edit, and launch your polls. The options to create or launch polls will open up the Zoom web portal in your default browser. When the poll closes, you can view the results and can download the full poll report. If a poll has already been created, both host and co-host can launch the poll, but only the host can edit or add polls to the meeting.
- New Share: Start a new screen share. You will be prompted to select which screen you want to share again.
- Pause Share: Pause your current shared screen.
- Annotate: Display annotation tools for drawing, adding text, and so on.
- More: Hover over More for additional options.
- Chat: Open the chat window.
- Record: Start recording locally or to the cloud.
- Meeting Info: Shows the current meeting's ID, host, passcode, invite link, your participant ID, and encryption status.
- Closed Caption / Live Transcript (only available to the host): If you have enabled closed captioning and live transcription for your account, click here to access those options.
- Breakout Rooms: Start breakout rooms.
- Enable annotation for others: Allow or prevent the participants from annotating on your shared screen.
- Show/Hide Names of Annotators: Show or hide the participants' name when they are annotating on a screen share. If set to show, the participant's name will briefly display beside their annotation.
- Hide / Show video panel
- Hide / Show Floating Meeting Control
- Share Sound
- Optimize for video clip
- Note: Do not enable this setting if you are not sharing a full screen video clip, as it will blur your screen share. This should be enabled/disabled before and after the video you wish to play.
Using the Whiteboard
1. Click the Share Screen button located in your task bar.

2. Click the Documents tab then select Whiteboard then share.
This will open the Whiteboards window menu, where you can select a new whiteboard to share or from older saved whiteboards from previous meetings.
In addition to this Zoom offers Templates to select from as well.

Once you have made your selection.
You will see your video and your selected option from the Whiteboards window menu.
The Whiteboard Menu:
- Mouse: Deactivate annotation tools and switch to your mouse pointer. This button is blue if annotation tools are deactivated.
- Select (only available if you started the shared screen or whiteboard): Select, move, or resize your annotations. To select several annotations at once, click and drag your mouse to display a selection area.
- Text: Insert text.
- Draw: Insert lines, arrows, and shapes.
- Note: To highlight an area of the shared screen or whiteboard, select following square or circle icon to insert a semi-transparent square or circle.
- Stamp: Insert predefined icons like a check mark or star.
- Spotlight / Arrow: Turn your cursor into a spotlight or arrow.
- Spotlight (only available if you started the shared screen or whiteboard): Displays your mouse pointer to all participants when your mouse is within the area being shared. Use this to point out parts of the screen to other participants.
- Arrow: Displays a small arrow instead of your mouse pointer. Click to insert an arrow that displays your name. Each subsequent click will remove the previous arrow placed. You can use this feature to point out your annotations to other participants.
- Eraser: Click and drag to erase parts of your annotation.
- Format: Change the formatting options of annotations tools like color, line width, and font.
Questions? Learn more about Zoom annotation tools.
Additional Resources
Want to take advantage of other Zoom features? Visit our guides to learn how to update other Zoom options.
Need help with something else? Contact Zoom support or your local or district IT help desk.
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