How to Save Your Whiteboard to Google Drive, PDF or an Image

To save your online whiteboard to Google Drive in Educastic, right-click the board, choose Save screenshot to Drive, connect your Google account, pick a folder and click Save here. The same menu saves to Dropbox or OneDrive. To keep every page of the lesson, use Save as PDF; for one board tab, use Save as Image.

A board full of worked examples is one of the most useful things a lesson produces, and one of the easiest to lose when the tab closes. This guide covers the three ways to keep it in Educastic, when to use each, and what each one does not do.

What are your options for saving the whiteboard?

Educastic gives the teacher three ways to save the board, each for a different job.

How do you save the whiteboard to Google Drive?

You save the board to Google Drive from the board's right-click menu. The steps:

1. Frame what you want to keep. Zoom and scroll so the part of the board you want is on screen. The screenshot captures only the visible area, not the whole canvas.
2. Right-click on the board and choose Save screenshot to Drive.
3. Choose the drive. If Dropbox and OneDrive are also available, a small window titled Save screenshot to asks which one. It lists the drive you used last first.
4. Connect your account the first time. Click Connect Google Drive and sign in to Google in the window that opens. You must be signed in to Educastic first.
5. Pick a folder. Browse your folders, use the search box, or click New folder to create one in the folder you have open.
6. Name the file. The File name box suggests a name with the date and time, such as whiteboard-2026-03-14-1030. Change it to something you will find later, like "Algebra week 3, factorising".
7. Click Save here. A message confirms the file name and the folder it went to.

Can you save the whiteboard to Dropbox or OneDrive?

Yes. Save screenshot to Drive works the same way with Dropbox and OneDrive: choose the drive, connect the account the first time, pick a folder and click Save here. For Dropbox and OneDrive, the window also has a Disconnect button if you want to unlink the account.

The drives offered are the same ones in the header's Load File to Whiteboard menu, which is also where you import files from them. If you teach inside the Google Meet add-on, only Google Drive is offered there.

How do you download the whole lesson as a PDF?

You download the lesson as a PDF from the header: open the Save Whiteboard Tab menu and click Save as PDF. Educastic saves the current board first, then builds one PDF from the session's board pages, one image per page, in landscape, titled with the session name. The download starts from a new browser tab.

This is the option to use at the end of a class. Upload the PDF to your course folder or send it to students as their notes; a board with your working on it is far more useful for revision than a clean worksheet. If you want the file in Google Drive, upload the downloaded PDF there as you would any file.

How do you save one board tab as an image?

Open the Save Whiteboard Tab menu and click Save as Image. Educastic downloads an image of the current board tab to your computer. Unlike the right-click screenshot, it is the whole tab, not just the part on your screen.

Use it when you want one board as a picture to drop into slides, a worksheet or a message to a parent.

When should you save the board during a lesson?

Save at the moments students will want to come back to, not only at the end.

• After a worked example. Save the finished solution to Drive before you clear the board.
• After brainstorming. A board of student ideas is the starting point for the next lesson.
• At the end of the class. Use Save as PDF for the full set of notes.

A simple habit: keep one Drive folder per class and one subfolder per week. With New folder in the save window you can build that structure without leaving the board. The same menu can also send the screenshot to the class chat; see chat and file sharing in an online class.

What are the limits?

A few points to plan around:

• Teachers only. The Drive save option appears for the teacher. Learners and guests do not see the cloud drive options.
• One screenshot at a time, PNG only. The Drive save sends a PNG of the visible board, up to 4 MB. To keep every page, use Save as PDF.
• The Drive window is in English. Its buttons and messages show in English even when the whiteboard is in Spanish.
• Some images block screenshots. If the board contains an image from another site that cannot be captured, Educastic tells you and takes no screenshot.

To bring files the other way, from your drive onto the board, see how to import files to the online whiteboard.

Frequently asked questions

Can I save the whole whiteboard to Google Drive at once? Not directly. Save screenshot to Drive saves the visible part of the board; for every page, use Save as PDF and upload the file to Drive.

Does saving to Google Drive need a Google account? Yes. You connect your Google account the first time you save, and you must be signed in to Educastic.

Can students save the board to their own Drive? No. The cloud drive options are shown to the teacher, not to learners or guests.

What file type does Save screenshot to Drive create? A PNG image, named with the date and time unless you change it.

Does saving the board cost extra? No. Educastic includes all of its teaching features in the free version.

Keep your next lesson's board

Teach your next lesson on the Educastic online whiteboard, save the key worked example to Google Drive, and download the full board as a PDF at the end.

Try the whiteboard free