Screen Marker

Pros

• Make marker-like markings anywhere on the screen
• Change pen color
• Hide all markings with a button
• Freehand or point-to-point

Cons

• Freehand hard to control with mouse/touchpad

Screen Marker is a handy utility that lets you write or draw anywhere on the screen.

Ever given a presentation and wished you could underscore a word or a draw a large circle around an item? Screen Marker is a program that helps you do that. It gives you a transparent overlay that can overlap PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, webpages or whatever. Write or draw whatever you wish, and then when you’re done, wipe it away.

If you’re familiar with Microsoft OneNote, then note that while it’s similar in some ways, it’s quite different in others. OneNote is sophisticated and intended for persistent notes. Screen Marker, on the other hand, is meant for using on the fly to create transitory notes. Of course, the notes you make with Screen Marker don’t have to be fleeting. You can persist them by saving images or recording video, but that kind of functionality isn’t built-in or directly supported in any way.

Screen Marker is a lightweight utility that runs quick, requires very little overhead and can be portable. The interface is very small so as to not take up much of your screen. There’s a color indicator, which indicates the current color, and you can click it to bring up a Windows-style color selector. There’s no pen size selector, unfortunately, but the default size is thick enough to be easily visible. There’s also a drop-down. By default, Screen Marker is in Freehand mode, but there are Point-to-Point and other more precise modes available as well. A Disable button lets you hide all markings at any time. Simply click Enable to show them again, but remember, markings don’t persist between sessions.

Freehand mode works quite well if you’re drawing on a touchscreen, for instance, with a stylus or even your finger. The controls are responsive and intuitive. Freehand doesn’t work quite as well when using a mouse or touchpad, unfortunately. Even basic shapes can be difficult to create. There are more precise methods available, such as choosing a start point and an end point, but using the program that way feels mechanical and isn’t a natural way to add emphasis during a presentation.

Pros

• Make marker-like markings anywhere on the screen
• Change pen color
• Hide all markings with a button
• Freehand or point-to-point

Cons

• Freehand hard to control with mouse/touchpad