Most of what you need to write and draw in a notebook is in the tool rail that runs down the left side of the open notebook, under the top band, the strip across the top of the notebook.
Your student has the same drawing tools you do, with the same options and defaults, except Text field and Image, which only you have.
Opening a notebook
Click the Notebooks icon in the Controls bar, the dark gray strip along the bottom of the call window, right after Share Screen.
The drawing tools
Pointer selects, moves, and resizes things. Drag to select several at once, or hold Shift and click to add to a selection.
Pen draws freehand. This is the main tool.
Text lets you click and type.
Text field places a blank for your student to type into. See Adding blanks for your student to type into.
Eraser removes a whole stroke or shape on contact.
Rectangle, Ellipse, Diamond, Line, and Arrow are for boxing, circling, underlining, and pointing.
Highlighter makes a wide, translucent stroke that sits behind text rather than over it, so highlighting never hides a word.
Laser pointer leaves a temporary trail that fades after about a second and makes no marks. Use it to point at something while you explain.
Image adds a picture to the page. See Adding an image.
Selecting a tool keeps the notebook in that mode until you select another tool, and the tools always stay in the same order. A new notebook opens with the Pen selected. The tool you are using is highlighted in the rail, and pointing at a tool shows its name. In a short window, the five shape tools fold into one Shapes button that opens a small list.
As you draw, move, or resize something, it snaps into line with what is already on the page, and guide lines appear while it does. Snapping is always on.
Arrows are marks, not connectors: an arrow does not attach to a shape or follow it when you move the shape.
Changing colors, widths, and other options
When a tool is active, or when something is selected, a small panel appears to the right of the tool rail, level with the tool, with the options for it. With the Pointer, the panel appears only when something is selected. In a short window, some rows fold into buttons that show the current choice and open a list, while Duplicate, Delete, and Lock always stay in view.
For Pen, Rectangle, Ellipse, Diamond, Line, and Arrow, choose a stroke color and a stroke width. The colors are Ink (black), Blue, Green, Red, Amber, and Purple, and the widths are Fine, Medium, and Bold. Ink and Medium are the defaults.
For Rectangle, Ellipse, and Diamond, also choose a Fill color — Transparent, Yellow, Green, Blue, Red, or Gray — and a Fill pattern — Hachure, Cross-hatch, or Solid fill. Transparent is the default, and the fill pattern is unavailable until you pick a fill color.
For Rectangle, Ellipse, Diamond, Line, and Arrow, choose a Stroke style: Solid, Dashed, or Dotted. Solid is the default.
Rectangle and Diamond also have Edge rounding, either Sharp corners or Rounded corners. Rounded corners is the default.
Arrow also has Arrowhead, Start and Arrowhead, End, each set to None, Arrow, Triangle, Dot, or Bar. By default there is no arrowhead at the start and an arrow at the end.
For Highlighter, choose from its own colors — Yellow, Green, Blue, Pink, and Orange — and a width of Thin or Thick. Yellow and Thin are the defaults.
For Text, choose a style, a font, and a color.
For Laser pointer, choose one of six colors. You and your student each start with a different color, and either of you can change it. Pointing at the color the other person is using shows whose it is.
Eraser has no options.
The color and width you pick stay selected when you switch between the pen and the shape tools, so you do not need to choose them again.
When several things are selected at once, the panel shows the options for all of them. Changing the color changes everything selected, while changing the text style or font changes only the text.
Selecting, arranging, and locking
With something selected, the last row of the panel also offers Duplicate, Delete, and Lock. Duplicate places a copy slightly offset from the original. Lock stops anyone from moving or changing what is selected, including you, and the button then reads Unlock. Your student cannot select or change a locked item and sees "This is locked." if they try. To lock everything in the notebook at once, see Using Lock and Pause editing in a Nearo notebook.
When two or more things are selected, Arrange offers ways to align and distribute them.
Use the four Layers buttons, Send to back, Send backward, Bring forward, and Bring to front, to change which items sit on top of others on the page. Your student has these too.
Use Opacity, the plus and minus buttons in the panel, to make selected items more or less see-through. Only you have it.
Right-click something to see Cut, Copy, Paste, Duplicate, Delete, Align, Distribute, Send backward, Bring forward, Send to back, and Bring to front. On a touch screen, press and hold instead of right-clicking.
Right-click empty space to see Paste and Select all.
Adding text
Text uses five styles rather than a font-size setting: Title, Heading, Subheading, Body, and Small. Choosing a style sets the size, weight, and spacing together, so text looks consistent without any adjusting. Body is the default.
Select the Text tool in the tool rail, click on the page, and type.
Press Enter to start a new line. Text wraps at the right margin of the page.
To set your own width, drag a side handle of the text. The text then wraps at that width.
Click existing text to place the cursor in it. Double-click to select a word, and triple-click to select a line.
Choose a style and a font from the panel. Any font works with any style.
If someone else is typing in a piece of text, you see "Name is typing here" until they finish.
All text is left-aligned, and there is no alignment setting.
Four fonts are available:
Andika, the default, is designed for beginning readers, with simple letterforms including a single-story "a".
Lexend
Noto Sans
Charis is a serif, better suited to older students and printed passages.
Marking text
Marks are phonics and reading notation you place over text, such as a macron over a long vowel.
With a mouse or trackpad, select the text. A bar appears just above it with Underline, Scoop, Box, Circle, Highlight, Slash, Brackets, Strikethrough, Macron, Breve, Schwa, and Clear marks.
Macron and Breve appear only when your selection includes a vowel, and Schwa appears only when exactly one vowel is selected.
On a touch screen or with a pen, the marks are on the tool rail instead: Underline, Scoop, Macron, Breve, Box, and More marks. If the rail is short, they fold into one Marks button.
A new mark uses the current stroke color, and Highlight uses the highlighter color. Marks stay with the text when you move it. Your student can mark text the same way, including text you have locked.
Adding blanks for your student to type into
A text field is a blank your student types into, such as a fill-in-the-blank on a worksheet. Only you can place one.
Select the Text field tool in the tool rail, which sits directly under Text, and place the blank on the page.
Choose an Appearance, Underline or Box. The panel also shows Color, Style, and Font.
To add a blank right after a piece of text, select that text and choose Text field after this text.
To copy or remove a blank, select it and choose Duplicate field or Delete field.
A blank always stays inside the page margins. While one of you is typing in a blank, the other cannot move, resize, or delete it.
Your student taps a blank to type in it, and their typing appears in the color you chose.
Adding an image
Select the Image tool, the last tool in the tool rail, to open Add an image.
You can also paste or drop an image onto the page.
To show just part of an image, double-click it to crop it.
PNG, JPEG, WebP, and GIF images work. An image keeps its shape when you resize it and always stays on the page. If Nearo cannot add an image, it shows a message that says why. Your student cannot add images or PDFs.
Undoing and redoing
Undo and Redo sit in the tool rail, below the drawing tools and the zoom controls.
Click Undo to reverse your last action.
Click Redo to put it back.
Undo reverses only your own last action. It never undoes your student's work, and your student's undo never touches yours. To remove something your student drew, use the Eraser in the tool rail.
Clearing a page
Clear page is the last item at the bottom of the tool rail.
Click Clear page.
Confirm that you want to clear the page.
This empties only the current page, never the whole notebook, and it can be undone. On a page with an imported PDF, the imported page stays. Because your student sees the same page you do, clearing the page clears what your student sees as well.