Guidance on installing Virtual Flipcharts through the open source software OBS. Virtual Flipcharts are a free, simple and easy way of including a flipchart electronically in your webcam. They help engage participation and form a helpful, and easy to distribute record of the meeting.
How to set up Virtual Flipcharts in OBS
To maximise the adoption and immediate benefits of Virtual Flipcharts, I have kept the starting approach deliberately simple. And I have explained it pictorially in a video (see right – you can do it all in 7 minutes!).
The step by step instructions are also laid out below.
The free virtual flipchart depends on a wonderful piece of open source software called OBS (However, there are commercial alternatives such as mmhmm). Your first step with OBS is to set it up on your machine, which is very quick and easy to do.
Installing OBS as a Virtual Webcam
Before we start, it is good practice to close down any other windows you might have open (except your browser). Then just head over to obsproject.com and click on the option that is right for you and then click the download to install it.
At the end of the installation, OBS will configure itself to your needs – simply click the third option (for virtual camera) then click ‘next’ and then ‘apply’.
Please don’t be put off by the number of options it has. We won’t need them, and so we will start by simplifying things and switching most of them off. To do this, go to ‘view’ and ‘docks’ and untick everything except ‘sources’ and ‘controls’, and the result should look like the picture on the left.
The next step is to load up your webcam into OBS.
Adding your real webcam to OBS
Your webcam, and your flipchart will form part of a ‘Virtual Camera’ that for the most part will look just like your normal webcam, but will enable you to add in your flipchart immediately you need it.
Before you add in your webcam, make sure it is not currently in use with anything else. If you have closed down all other windows, you should be okay on this point.
Then right click the sources panel in OBS, and click add, and then click ‘video capture device’ toward the bottom of the list.
Then, in the window that opens, under ‘create new’, give your webcam a name (like ‘webcam’), and click OK.
Hopefully it will pick up your webcam immediately. If not, you should be able to select it through the device drop down. Click OK, and your webcam should appear in your main OBS window, surrounded by a red box that you can use to move and resize it on the screen.
The next step is to add in the flipchart.
Adding Virtual Flipcharts to OBS
To add a flipchart, first select the one you want from the styles available on the Flipcharts Page.
Then open it up in PowerPoint. We are now going to do a couple of very simple PowerPoint tricks. Firstly click the ‘View’ menu item (1).
Then, on the view ribbon that appears, click ‘New Window’ (2). This will open up a second window on the same file. Then click view in this second window, and click ‘Reading View’ (3), and resize this window so that it is tight onto the image of your flipchart (see left). Reading view is essentially ‘slideshow’, but in a window.
Now, because these two Powerpoint windows are linked, anything you type into the slide in edit view in the first window should immediately appear on the reading view.
Then, back in OBS, right click the sources panel again, and click add, and then click ‘window capture’, again toward the bottom of the list. Give your window a name (like ‘flipchart’) under ‘create new’, then click OK.
Make sure it picks up the right window by selecting it through the device drop down (it probably begins with the following text …)
[POWERPNT.EXE} PowerPoint Slide Show …
Click OK, and your virtual flipchart should appear in your main OBS window, again surrounded by a red box that you can use to move and resize it on the screen. Adjust your own physical position in your webcam (e.g. sit slightly to one side of the lens) and then position the virtual flipchart on the other side.
Then simply select your OBS virtual webcam when you join your next virtual meeting.
This approach works with any of the Virtual Flipchart solutions: Standard; whiteboard; blackboard; slate; … And with any of the Virtual Flipchart tools: Plain; timer; templates; supercards; moodtracker; …