Are you using a special utility to mark up images stored on OneDrive? Why not use OneDrive’s built in markup editor in a browser to do it? This little known feature could be all you need.
If you a sometimes need to highlight parts of an image, add arrows pointing to things, or draw on an image, what tool do you use? It is something I do a lot for images on this website, but you may also need to mark up an image to highlight parts when discussing it with work colleagues, clients, or customers.
There are many reasons why you might want to annotate an image and there are also many tools that enable you to do it. Do you really need a special tool though? If the image is stored on OneDrive there is no need to download it and load it into an editor.
Here is how to mark up images stored on OneDrive in a web browser. It works on a Windows PC, Apple Mac, Linux or even a phone (in the OneDrive app rather than an browser though). I will be using Edge or Chrome on a computer for this guide though.
Open an image in Pictures
Go to OneDrive.com in a web browser and find an image you want to mark up. Here’s a weird thing though. Although an image can be edited anywhere on OneDrive, the markup editor has more features if you edit the image in the Pictures folder.
That confused me until I realised that the image has to be in the Pictures folder in order to access all of the markup features. Outside of the Pictures folder, you only get some of the features.
If the image is already in the Pictures folder, you can go straight to photos.onedrive.com and then click the image you want to mark up. If it is elsewhere on OneDrive, move it there.
Switch to edit mode
A large view of the image appears and at the top of the screen in the toolbar is an Edit button. Click it to switch to edit mode.
Switch to markup mode
Crop, Adjustment, Filter, and Markup appear in a toolbar at the top of the screen. I will look the other features some other time, for now, click Markup to enter markup mode.
Pens, colors and drawing tools
At the left side of the image is a toolbox consisting of two pens for drawing on the image, a highlighter for applying broad strokes to highlight part of the image, an eraser to remove pen strokes and highlights, and a clear button to remove everything you added.
Click a pen and a color palette is displayed. Click a color and then click and drag over the image to draw on it. Above the color palette is the pen line width selector.
Below the color palette is a small collection of drawing options. There is an arrow, double headed arrow, and line with no arrows. There are similar arrow options for freehand line drawing, and these are useful for curved arrows.
If you make a mistake, select the eraser pen and then click the line to erase. If you want start over, click the bottom icon in the tools on the left. Undo, reset, and redo buttons are at the top of the screen.
Save the image
The Save button in the top left corner is actually a menu. Click it and then select Save as if you want to keep the original image and save the annotated image with a new name. Save will overwrite it.
Final thoughts on OneDrive markup
Markup in OneDrive could be and should be a lot better than it is, and it lacks features that would make it a useful alternative to the tools I currently use. One problem is that objects like lines and arrows are not selectable or editable. I often want to click an arrow and then move it a little, resize it, or change the thickness. Once they are drawn, you can’t. Only lines are available, so no boxes or other shapes, which I sometimes need.
OneDrive markup editoris not perfect, but it is worth keeping an eye on because new features could be added at any time, making it a more useful tool. For now though, I am going to stick with Markup Hero on a Windows PC and Preview on a Mac.
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