There are a lot of excellent tools on the web for clipping, annotating, and sharing bookmarks with your friends and colleagues. For a long time I used Google Bookmarks for that purpose. Recently, I became a converted and dedicated user of Evernote. But sometimes you might want to actually capture and draw on a webpage to point out to others specific elements of that webpage. Here are three free tools for doing just that.
Awesome Screenshot is a great Chrome and Safari browser extension for capturing, annotating, and sharing screenshots. Once you’ve installed Awesome Screenshot you can simply activate it from your browser to capture a page or region on a page, draw boxes, draw lines, blur out information, and add text to your screenshot. When you’re satisfied with your screenshot you can save it locally or share it via the url provided by Awesome Screenshot. Watch the short video below to see Awesome Screenshot in action.
Bounce is a neat application that not only allows you to make annotated screen captures of websites but also allows you to instantly share those screen captures with others. To use Bounce, type in the url of any website then click “Bounce.” Bounce will then create an image of that website on which you can draw boxes and annotate those boxes. You can create as many boxes and notes as you like. When you’re done creating notes, Bounce will provide you with a unique url for your screen captures that you can share with others. If you create a Bounce account (optional) you and other Bounce users can annotate the same screen capture.
Markup.io is a free service that enables you to quickly draw and write on any webpage. Markup.io operates as a bookmarklet in your browser’s bookmarks bar or toolbar. Once you have Markup.io installed just click it anytime you’re viewing a webpage to start drawing and commenting on that page. When you’re done marking a page you can share it with others by clicking publish. Publishing creates a screen capture of the page with your drawings and comments. That screen capture is assigned its own unique url that you can direct others to.
