Annotation—powered by Microsoft Whiteboard—helps you collaborate on things like a design or presentation while sharing your screen in a Teams meeting.
Turn on and use annotations
While you're sharing your full screen in a meeting, move your cursor to the top of the screen, you will see this meeting controls menu.
Select Start annotation
The red outline around the shared screen will turn blue and all participants will see the Microsoft Whiteboard toolset at the top of the shared screen. Everyone in the meeting can begin annotating right away, and the red pen tool is selected by default.
NOTE: the whiteboard program might take a few minutes to load for those with slow network connections.
To begin annotating, choose one of the tools in the Whiteboard toolset—like Sticky notes—and start typing or drawing on the screen.
For those that are using a keyboard, the best tool is the Text option. Click on the “T” and click where you want to start typing.
Right clicking on the shared content will bring up annotation options also.
There is no option to export or download the annotations. It is recommended to screenshot the page to view the content later.
Select the trash icon to remove all annotations.
Annotation Settings
Collaborative cursors show the names of every participant in the meeting by default. Anyone in the meeting can turn them off. To turn them off:
- Select Settings.
- Turn off the toggle next to Collaborative cursors.
Turn off annotation
As the presenter, you can turn off annotation for all participants by selecting Stop annotation in the meeting controls at the upper-middle area of your screen.