Share your screen during club meetings
Run a club or society? Here's how your tech can make it easier
Screen sharing on club video calls is a great way to do everything from demonstrating a new process through to reviewing ideas for a club logo redesign. Although all video-chat tools offer basic video-sharing features (see box below), none can match those offered by Zoom ( www.zoom.us).
To start sharing your screen in Zoom, click the green Share Screen button at the bottom (hover your cursor over the main Zoom window to reveal this). The sharing options are split across three tabs: Basic, Advanced and Files. In the Basic tab, you can share the desktop of a specific monitor (these will be labelled Screen 1, Screen 2 and so on) or a single window.
A green border will appear around whatever you’re sharing. Hover over the ‘You are screen sharing’ label and you’ll see several options, including Annotated, which lets you draw over what’s being displayed. Click ‘Pause Share’ to temporarily stop sharing, or Stop Share to return to the main Zoom call.
When sharing a window that’s playing audio (such as a Youtube video), click the ‘Share sound’ box at the bottom so participants can hear the audio. Although your microphone won’t be muted when you do this, the audio from your screenshare will take precedence. It’s therefore best to pause the video if you want to speak to the other people on your call. We also recommend ticking the ‘Optimise for video clip’ option – this prioritises frame rates over image quality, which ensures a smoother, if slightly less detailed, video.
To share a video stored on your PC, select the Advanced tab, Video (Zoom will automatically tick the ‘Share sound’ and ‘Optimise for video clip’ boxes), Share, then select the relevant video. Your clip will now play in full screen to everyone on your call, and you can control playback using the buttons at the bottom.
The ‘Advanced’ tab also provides other sharing options, including ‘Portion of Screen’, which lets you share just a section of your desktop. There’s also a beta sharing option (‘Powerpoint as Virtual Background’) that lets you superimpose yourself over a presentation. Once you’ve chosen your presentation ( PPT and PPTX formats are supported), it will appear as a virtual background, allowing you to point towards areas of interest (click and drag the blue box to adjust the size and position of your video feed – see screenshot left).
Share your desktop or a window
Share video and audio
Share presentations and more
Share using your phone or tablet
The Zoom mobile app ( https://zoom.us/ download - scroll to the Zoom Mobile Apps section) also lets you share your screen, but it has fewer options. Tap the Share button (you may need to tap the screen to reveal this), then choose what to share. The ‘Bookmark’ option lets you quickly share previously saved web links (to add a bookmark, select this option, then click Add Bookmark at the top left). Unlike on the desktop version, you can’t share audio on a mobile device, so we don’t recommend sharing videos.
Control who can share
To prevent others in your call from sharing their screen, click the small up arrow next to the Share Screen button (see screenshot below), select ‘Advanced Sharing Options…’, then – under ‘Who can share?’ – select Only Host. If you select All Participants, the ‘How many participants…’ section lets you choose whether multiple people can share their screen simultaneously.
Precisely how everyone sees multiple screen shares depends on whether they’re using the desktop or mobile version of Zoom. On desktop PCS, the most recently shared screen will appear in full screen, but people can switch between the other shared screens via the View Options button (top right) - those with two monitors can view two shared screens simultaneously. On mobile devices, only the most recently shared screen will be visible.