Presenting in BBB

    For each BBB room, one person has the presentation rights.

    In accordance with their role in the program, usually the first person to enter the room takes on the role of the BBB presenter if they are a moderator or a presenter of the conference session.  Every person with moderator rights can assign the presenter role to any other person that is currently in the room. The current presenter can also pass on the presentation role to another person.



    An additional blue presentation symbol will appear in the upper left corner of the person's icon when they become the presenter. Both participants and presenters can take on the presenter role.
    The presenter manages a meeting and can:
    • use the whiteboard feature
    • initiate polls
    • upload presentations
    • share their screen
    • share external videos (YouTube, Vimeo, Instructure Media, Twitch, Dailymotion and media file URLs)
    PLEASE NOTE: A session can only contain one presenter at a time. The moderator can appoint any participant to be the presenter, including themself.

    The Whiteboard

    The presentation area with the whiteboard feature is probably the most obvious element of any BigBlueButton room. The whiteboard provides presenters with blank white pages as well as various tools and options. The tools are not only available for the whiteboard but can also be used for slides of uploaded presentations.


    Fig. 1

    1. Tools: Various tools that can be used to highlight elements displayed on the whiteboard or slides, e.g. text fields, geometric shapes and pencils
    2. Line thickness
    3. Line color
    4. Undo the most recent annotation
    5. Deletes all annotations (caution: The process cannot be undone.)
    6. Touch recognition for use of a tablet
    7. Multi-user mode: Can be activated so that the whiteboard tools and options are available for all participants, for example for collaborative exercises.
      When a participant hovers over the slide or edits something, their name will appear (see fig. 2).

    Fig. 2

    To make the most of the whiteboard feature during a presentation, we recommend adding blank slides to your presentation.

    Initiate Polls

    Polls are a great way to engage participants during a presentation.
    Press the "Plus" button in the bottom left corner of the presentation area and the Actions menu will open. Select the Start a poll option.

    Use the text field below Ask a question to enter the question for your poll.
    TIP: Instead of a question you can also enter other content such as asking people to rate something.

    You can edit the predefined response choices such as "True/False" or "A/B/C/D". The amount of response choices is limited to 5. You can also select the User Response option as a response type if participants should be able to enter an own response.


    Fig. 3

    Once the poll has been started, participants will see it as a pop-up window on their screens.
    The presenter will see the results immediately. Using the Publish polling results will close the poll and publish the results. 

    Upload Presentations

    The "Plus" button in the bottom left corner can be used to manage and upload presentations. Use the mouse to drag the Office documents or PDF files to the designated upload area, or select the file in the file browser. To mark the presentation you want to display in the presentation area, use the check-mark. You can decide for each file whether it should be available for participants to download. If downloading is possible, participants will see a download icon in the bottom left corner of the presentation (see fig. 4).


    Fig. 4



    Fig. 5

    NOTE: BBB will convert all uploaded files. You should therefore save all documents as PDF in advance. Please consider that certain animations or audio/video elements might not be displayed correctly when they're part of a BBB presentation. 

    Use the "Plus" button for a list of all uploaded presentations and to quickly switch between presentations.

    Share External Videos

    You can also Share an external video. Shared videos can be watched together in a BBB session. External video URLs from sources such as YouTube, Vimeo, Instructure Media, Twitch, Dailymotion and media file URLs are supported. 


    Fig. 6

    Share a Screen

    BBB allows presenters to either share their entire screen, selected windows or browser tabs (1). If the screen's audio (video playback, PowerPoint presentation) should be available for the BBB participants too, you need to make sure that the Share system audio option (2) is active. Use the Share button (3) to start the screen sharing. All participants will now see the selected content in the presentation area.


    Fig. 7
    Published