Choose a Desktop Option to Share

Click the Share Screen icon and Zoom reveals a three-tabbed window with an array of choices. Shared items either have a green outline or appear in a green-outlined window in Zoom, depending on the item.

The Basic tab includes screen-based options (Figure 43):

• Any display: Zoom notes these as Desktop 1, Desktop 2, and so forth, and overlays large numbers on the corresponding displays.

• Whiteboard: A blank screen appears that you (and others) can draw on with annotation tools, described in Mark Up a Screen.

• iPhone/iPad via AirPlay (Mac/Windows) or via Cable (Mac only): Zoom can stream the screen from a device connected via Wi-Fi or via USB. With Wi-Fi, use the Control Center, tap Screen Mirroring, and select the Zoom destination as described in the app’s instructions; this works in Windows and in MacOS. On a Mac, you can also directly connect via USB: plug in the cable and then you may need to tap Trust and enter the connected device’s passcode. The device’s display appears as a resizable window in Zoom.

• Any app window: All app windows appear as available choices. You can limit which windows are shown across an app via Settings > Share Screen > Advanced by selecting “Share selected app window only.” Zoom switches to the app’s window, and your interactions in the app are shared to the meeting.

The Advanced tab isn’t that different from some items in Basics, but presents five choices:

• Slides as Virtual Background (beta): This feature first appeared in August 2020 with a “beta” label—and only lost that pre-release label in early 2022. It requires its own section; see below.

• Portion of Screen: An outline appears that you can drag around your display (or across displays) and then drag on a corner to resize. This is an extremely useful way to take a portion of a window in an app without interface elements. However, because it always shows that part of the screen, and isn’t limited to a given window in an app, you have to be careful that the screen area you’ve selected remains free of other windows or elements overlaying it.

• Computer Audio: If you want to pump in the audio emitting from your computer’s currently selected audio output device (the system default), you can pick this option to route it into Zoom. Click the downward-pointing arrow next to the label to select whether the sound should be sent as Mono or Stereo (High-fidelity).

• Video: You can select a video file in MP4 format (native or within an Apple MOV file), and it’s streamed to the meeting. Zoom provides the host with standard video play controls, just like player a video in a native app, like play and pause, and the host sees the duration and current position. Attendees don’t see any of the controls or the video progress or length bar.

• Content from 2nd Camera: This allows you to share an additional video input, such as a document camera, instead of selecting it as a different source for your participant video stream.

The Files tab reveals integrations with online cloud file services, including Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and both Microsoft OneDrive and SharePoint. Sharing a file this way—as opposed to within an app you’re running on the same computer—opens it using a Zoom viewer that relies on formats supported natively on the operating system. With macOS and Windows, that’s typically PDF, Excel, JPEG images, Rich Text Format, and a number of other text and media formats.

Across all three tabs, you have the option to check “Share sound,” which uses the default system output, useful for video or presentations with embedded audio or video. Click the downward-pointing arrow next to the label to select Mono or Stereo (High-fidelity) as with Computer Audio sharing above.

When you start sharing, desktop apps briefly display a small lozenge-shaped banner that reads, “Participants can now see your [screen, application, etc.].”

Select “Optimize for video clip” if the item you’re sharing contains full-screen video. Zoom downsamples the clip to 1080p or 720p depending on its initial resolution. Optimizing improves streaming quality; for anything else, Zoom warns the setting makes screen sharing blurry. This is also available as a toggle on the menu that appears when you click or tap More , described next.

Work with Slides as a Virtual Background

Zoom offers a desktop feature that provides a sort of hybrid option between a participant video stream and its screen-sharing option for presentations. It turns slides in a form of virtual background over which you can place yourself (Figure 44)!

The feature works on the Mac with Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote, while the Windows app supports only PowerPoint.

Select the Slides as Virtual Background option on the Advanced tab, as described above, and then select a presentation from a supported app. Zoom launches the presentation software if it’s not already running and performs some kind of behind-the-scenes operation to process the slides, while “Processing Slides” appears in lieu of your video stream. Then control resumes within Zoom.

Instead of a green-bordered sharing window, control is managed in a version of Speaker view. You have just backward and forward advance arrow icons; you can’t type in a slide number (Figure 45). All animations and videos are removed—these are just flat slides, like a PDF export (which may be what Zoom is using).

The unique part is that you are overlaid on top of the slides. Zoom uses either its algorithmic background removal or, if you have it checked in Settings > Background & Filters, green-screen removal. You can click on your image and drag and resize yourself; you can also click the slide control’s More icon, and choose Resize My Video.

It can look a little odd, like you’ve been slightly Tron-like inserted into your slides. But it also is potentially a warmer and more evocative way to interact with participants, as they can see you and your presentation in a single window in their view.

From that menu, you can also opt to take yourself out of the picture by selecting Split Video from Slides, which divides the slide view and your video into two separate feeds other participants can see.

As long as I’m using non-interactive PowerPoint or Keynote presentations, I like this mode quite a lot—it lets me work with Zoom’s participant view while still having the advantage of presenting a slide deck.

For a thorough look at presenting in full-screen mode, using PowerPoint and Keynote slideshows, and screen sharing with different combinations of monitors and devices, see Present in Zoom, next.

Control Sharing from the Desktop

When you’re ready to share, click Share and the selected content or item is shared. Instructions appear if you need guidance on how to proceed, like connecting an iPhone or selecting part of a screen.

Zoom brings up a control bar that shows meeting options alongside screen-sharing controls, including showing your status and a Stop Share button to end the session (Figure 46). It also provides details about the current session’s security, whether recording is underway, and whether the session is live streaming.

You can click New Share to swap the current sharing choice to another. Pause Share lets you temporarily stop sending without ending the sharing session, and resume it when you wish. Annotate brings up standard controls described in View a Shared Screen.

Click upward or downward pointing icon on the far-left side of the green bar on the second tier, and it swaps the bar docking from the top to bottom or bottom to top of the screen.

Click the More icon, and you have several granular controls:

• Meeting Info: Select this if you need the particulars of the current meeting, such as its ID, while sharing.

• Disable Annotation for Others: Even when you’re not the host, you can prevent others from marking up your screen.

• Hide Names of Annotators: Enabled by default, Zoom labels attached to all on-screen markup. Select hide to remove those.

• Hide Video Panel: The floating window with other participants can be hidden if you prefer while you’re sharing the screen.

• Hide Floating Meetings Controls: If you want to avoid having this bar float around, choose this option or press ⌘-Control-Shift-H in macOS or Control-Alt-Shift-H in Windows. Press Esc to restore the controls.

• Share Computer Sound: You can toggle this option, which is also found when originally selecting a shared item.

• Optimize Screen Share for Video Clip: See the end of the preceding section, just above.

The menu that appears when you click More may show a number of other options for participants, depending on which features a host or administration has turned on. This can include options for recording, live transcription, live streaming, audio, and existing or ending a meeting—these supplement options that otherwise require the full session window interface. Hosts and co-hosts see additional options that vary by enabled features and the tier of service their account is on.