Using the whiteboard
Write and draw on the whiteboard with the pen, shapes, ruler, text, equations, graphs and pictures.
Updated 18 October 2026
Why this exists
Writing maths with a mouse, or on a board that loses strokes when two people write, gets in the way of teaching. The whiteboard is made for a pen on a tablet, with shapes, a ruler and protractor, equations and graphs. Tutors and students can work on the same page in lessons, meetings and Documents.
The same whiteboard is in Documents, the online classroom and staff meetings. It is made for a pen on an iPad, but a mouse works too.
Make a whiteboard
Open Documents, choose + Whiteboard. In an online lesson the board is already there.
The tools
- Pen (P) and Highlighter (H). Pick any colour and a size under Colour and size.
- Eraser (E) rubs out whole strokes or just part of one.
- Shapes (S): line, arrow, rectangle, circle and triangles. Or draw a rough shape and hold the pen still to make it neat.
- Select and move (V): draw a loop round writing to move, resize, recolour, copy or delete it.
- Ruler and protractor: two fingers move and turn them, and the pen draws along the edge.
- Laser pointer (L) points without leaving ink.
- Insert adds text, sticky notes, an Equation, a Graph (type something like
y = x^2) or a Picture.
Pages and paper
- Add a page, or New page from a template for squared, lined, axes, number lines, isometric or handwriting paper.
- Pages shows every page to reorder or hide.
- A PDF or image as pages brings a worksheet in to write on.
- Download as PDF saves the board.
Good to know
- Undo and Redo work on everything, including a move.
- Replay this page plays the writing back in the order it was written.
- More on teaching with it: Pages and the Students panel.