Whiteboard or notepad?
Do you need to take notes or capture your audience’s attention?
The main input tool of all these packages is the pen. Drawing freehand lines is the foundation of artistic freedom and expression of thought. The actual shape of the line comes second. Using black, solid lines is enough when all you want to do is to write or mark sections. Simple graphs – including charts – don’t need anything else, either. With that being said, lines that look more like charcoal marks or the ability to create circles and squares are welcome features, but when you present ideas, they need to be simple and clear.
OpenBoard provides a range of tools that you can use for visualising your ideas. You can even create your own if you have some JavaScript experience. The application also sports a web browser and the ability to have the board duplicated to another screen, which is a feature that’s unique among the programs on test here. When it comes to features, Xournal++ comes second to OpenBoard. The others are still limited in features because they’re either new or have very few developers behind them.
Although Rnote is one of the newer projects, it actually fairs well in this test category. It sports ellipse and Bézier tools, along with a structured brush that enables you to create strokes, which look artistic and might help in capturing your audience’s attention or making a certain point extra clear. Lorien and Rainbow have the fewest features but are stable and may improve in time as they build on their base. With both audience and code being small these two programs may find a niche to thrive in.