Windows Ink Workspace and Pen drawing apps

Using the pen on the screen.

Windows Ink Workspace

I noticed that the little ink logo was on my laptop and decided to look up what it does, this is the Windows Ink Workspace icon. I watched a couple of videos on it and it seemed like a handy tool. You could write on your screen in a presentation or showing someone else something on the drawing.

Unfortunately the current version doesn’t do this, you can write to a Whiteboard or to a Screenshot of your screen, so you are writing on an image.

So I went looking for alternatives.

ppInk

There was this video and I was impressed with the tool. I thought it had some great features.

Good when it runs but it seems not to activate, keeps on asking for .Net runtime so not stable. A shame as it has great features.

gInk

This was the original that ppInk was based on, a bit limited but easy to use and reliable. Far more stable.

It has hotkeys to start it and select pen type or other items, so pretty handy with the pen itself, so you don’t need the mouse. I like the Eye on/off so you can hide it and the screenshot is good because you can crop the bit you want.

LiveDraw

Another free tool, a nice feature is you can have it vertical or horizontal, which is nice as it can work in Portrait on a tablet as well as landscape ( although gInk does that too, but its a pretty massive ribbon)

I found the sizing of the pen nib a bit odd, it’s the button on the left, where you have to hold it down and it grows and then resets to small and grows again.

This like gInk is basically freestyle, although the line has a toggle, either freestyle or point to point, so you can draw a straight line.

Pensela

This is interesting, has draw features and also icons that you can add in, you can have a blank canvas or write on the screen. No hotkeys, and you can pin it to task bar, so you have to activate from the bar all the items you want, including minimizing and closing

There is a video on it here:

Pensela

I think this one may be the useful one as it has a lot of useful features including shapes etc.

ZoomIt

I did have this one before, but it was totally driven by hotkeys and it was a pain to try and remember them in the middle of a video, so although its pretty good, I didn’t find it easy to use on a casual basis.

I did find that being able to markup stuff in OBS was good but you’d need a little sticky to remember what the keys were. I may revisit this later if I do a lot of videoing but I’ve not got anything on at the moment.

Screenmarker

[Su_button url=”https://screenmarker.en.uptodown.com/windows” target=”blank” style=”glass” background=”#e12613″ size=”4″]ScreenMarker[/su_button]

Doesn’t even line up with where you are drawing, also toolbar too small to easily pick things. I was drawing in middle of screen and it was creating marks to the right off screen and only edge showing. Not recommended.

Demohelper

I haven’t tried this but it uses hotkeys. [Su_button url=”https://tools.stefankueng.com/DemoHelper.html” target=”blank” style=”glass” background=”#e12613″ size=”4″]DemoHelper[/su_button]

Screen doodler

This is on all the weird free download sites without a homepage. [Su_button url=”https://download.cnet.com/Screen-Doodler/3000-2049_4-10074390.html” target=”blank” style=”glass” background=”#e12613″ size=”4″]Screen Doodler[/su_button]

EpicPen (Free & Paid Versions)

I have played with this before but the free version is a cut down version of the paid app. So annoying that you see features that you can’t use in the free version (just to encourage you to buy). It was OK if I recollect.

End comment

I would like a simple highlighter for when I’m doing videos or even a zoom call, so maybe gInk & Pensela may meet my needs.