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OpenBoard

EDTECH
Velocity0.0

Interactive whiteboard software for schools and universities

openboard.ch ↗

An interactive whiteboard whose releases are Qt upgrades and PDF rendering fidelity.

interactive-whiteboardqt-migrationpdf-renderingclassroom-hardwareannual-cadence
◆Current state
OpenBoard publishes roughly once a year, and the entries are dominated by rendering correctness and toolkit maintenance. The most recent build moves to Qt 6.9 on macOS, Debian and Windows and fixes PDF glitches under DPI scaling and non-integer device pixel ratios. The build before it reworked thumbnails to be shared between board and document mode, added snapping for rotated items, and sped up the background loader.
◆Where it's heading
Nearly every named change traces to the same problem class: documents and drawings rendering wrongly on the hardware classrooms actually use — scaled displays, tablet erasers, Windows document switching. Alongside it the project has been widening how it can be built and extended, with CMake support for community Linux builds and a separate Latex2SVG converter whose output drags onto the board. Contributions cluster heavily around one or two individuals.
◆Prediction
Expect the Qt 6 migration to keep generating platform-specific rendering fixes across the next builds, with new capability continuing to arrive as small companion tools rather than changes to the board itself.

◆Recent moves

  1. 7mo ago

    v1.7.4rc moves to Qt 6.9 and fixes DPI-scaled PDF rendering

    Qt 6.9 lands on macOS, Debian and Windows together, and with it fixes for PDFs glitching under DPI scaling and appearing blurry when the device pixel ratio is not 1.0. A systematic Windows crash on document switch is also worked around.

    View source ↗
  2. 0y ago

    v1.7.4a unifies thumbnails and speeds up background loading

    Board and document mode share one thumbnail implementation, rotated items gain snapping with a rotating snap indicator, and the background loader is made faster. A dense batch of interaction fixes — tablet eraser handling, scene shifts between pages, duplicate imports — comes with it.

    View source ↗
  3. 2y ago

    v1.7.1rc adds Latex2SVG and CMake builds for Linux

    A separate Latex2SVG converter turns LaTeX and mhchem formulas into SVGs you drag onto the board, and CMake support opens the door to community-driven Linux builds. The Windows PDF stack also moves from xpdf to poppler.

    View source ↗