
All about whiteboard markers - idoco
https://medium.com/graphicfacilitation/all-you-need-to-know-about-whiteboard-markers-2a25d1249911
======
RandallBrown
This is without a doubt, the strangest, most well researched article I've ever
seen on Hacker News.

I've mostly used Expo markers and it was weird skimming this because I felt
like I had some weird brand allegiance, even though I have no reason to really
care much about markers.

~~~
Fomite
Same for me. I was looking at my huge collection of Expo markers going "Yeah
Expo!"...which makes no sense.

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nickjj
If anyone is interested, here's how you can build your own 8 foot by 4 foot
whiteboard for about $15 (they normally cost around $200):

[https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/build-your-own-8x4-foot-
white...](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/build-your-own-8x4-foot-whiteboard-
for-15-dollars-instead-of-200)

I've been using Expo markers for a long time. They rock.

~~~
mythrwy
Can confirm it works well. I even found some 1/8 trim plastic (also at Home
Depot, don't recall the section, think it was flooring or where they have
molding for walls). Slipped right over the edges and cut at an angle for
corners it looks pretty professional.

Only downside is I left a DB schema on the board for months and now can't get
it off. Probably there is a solvent that would do it but haven't really looked
yet. That might be a problem with regular whiteboards also though.

~~~
rgacote
Try going over the image with a fresh marker. My daughter figured out that you
can then easily erase the image.

~~~
antod
That technique is also quite effective for removing permanent marker from a
whiteboard.

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baldfat
Was on a review visit to Princeton with about 12 other people from various
colleges and universities. We saw that Princeton was installing boards, I
assumed it was whiteboards. I said just now installing whiteboards? No we are
replacing all the white boards with chalk boards, because evn Princeton
Professors can't tell the difference between a Sharpie and a Dry Erase marker.

Everyone in my group stated laughing and I just thought as the guy in charge
of classroom equipment, hmm how can we get rid of these $5,000 document
readers at my school no on can figure them out.

~~~
Symbiote
Do you mean things like [1]? That's my university, which was using them 12
years ago while I attended.

It's a high resolution camera pointing straight down at an evenly-lit sheet of
ordinary A3 paper.

The "board" (the projector screen) was at a height that everyone could see.
The lecturer could write with whatever pens they wanted; could continue from
the previous lecture easily; could look forwards at the students rather than
having their back to the class. They could show a page from a book, or bits of
a robot or circuit board. There was no chalk dust, no marker smell, no dirty
boards, no worn-out faint markers, no mistakes with permanent markers.

No-one ever had trouble using it. Most rooms had two projectors, and the
touchscreen on the right selected an input for each projector (desktop
computer, laptop, DVD player, visualiser etc).

[1]
[http://www.imperial.ac.uk/ImageCropToolT4/imageTool/uploaded...](http://www.imperial.ac.uk/ImageCropToolT4/imageTool/uploaded-
images/charingcross-brian-01--tojpeg_1448987676485_x2.jpg) or
[http://www.imperial.ac.uk/events-and-
hospitality/venues/char...](http://www.imperial.ac.uk/events-and-
hospitality/venues/charingcross/)

Presumably this is the manufacturer: [https://elmoeurope.com/product-
category/visualiser/](https://elmoeurope.com/product-category/visualiser/)

~~~
baldfat
Yes but ours were Wolfvision.

The reason why I wanted to get rid of them was A) The professors would try to
fold them down and pull and break the arms and the damage the table. B) They
ended up eating a ton of my equipment budget.

For some reason the staff as a whole decided that it was ridiculous the
college spent so much on the equipment (Up to $100,000 per large classroom)
and revolted on touching anything because they didn't want to be responsible
for damaging them. No one on my staff ever threatened anyone nor did the
administration. After a few years I left but man the document reader was
always the drama point. When I was in the classroom teaching I would go out of
my way to use them all the tim.

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louprado
Fun fact: You can use a dry erase marker to erase the writing of a permanent
marker. Assuming a smooth surface, scribble the dry erase marker over the
permanent mark and erase.

~~~
simonbarker87
Spray deodorant also does the trick

~~~
LeifCarrotson
Any organic solvent will do it. Acetone is ideal, in a metalworking shop
Sharpie marks are constantly being cleaned off metal using acetone.

~~~
rootusrootus
I hate recommending acetone flippantly. Sure, it will definitely take it off,
but I'd bet that for a lot of the whiteboards in use today it would also take
off the surface of the whiteboard. I do love acetone but it's my solvent of
last resort.

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seaknoll
> Expo and Sharpie go next. They are OK to hold and work. But ladies might
> find their caps a bit challenging to attach/disattach — it really takes some
> physical effort.

Can't speak to the Sharpies, but Expo caps require a completely
uncommentworthy level of effort to remove. \- lady with Expos

~~~
TheAdamist
I don't know about other brands, but the juvenile in me loves how the expo
caps stack on to each other to make swords/what have you

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politelemon
I actually prefer markers with a smell, and wholeheartedly disagree with its
placement in the "cons" as part of an evaluation criteria. I'm also sure that
I am not alone in the enjoyment of the olfactory sensations such markers
provide, there are probably dozens of us who feel the same.

~~~
pokpokpok
Whiteboards are usually used for collaboration, and your coworkers or
candidates can't really "opt out" of a smell, so it does make sense to be
thoughtful about this (some people have strong aversions)

~~~
greenyoda
Thanks for being thoughtful. The smell bothers me so much that I removed the
whiteboard from the wall of my office so that visitors couldn't write on it.

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spodek
I prefer chalkboards so much more.

Reason #1: You can tell how much chalk is left.

Reason #2: Not filling up landfills with plastic.

~~~
cortesoft
I HATE chalkboards. I hate the feeling of chalk on my hand, I hate the sound
chalk makes on a chalkboard, I hate the chalk dust, I hate the feel of
chalkboards themselves.

~~~
einrealist
I am on the opposite side of your spectrum. Serious question: Are there any
bad experiences from school that you might associate with chalk and chalk
boards?

The only thing I hated was to clean the board, if the sponge was old and
stinky. But I always liked the idea that chalk is so simple. There is always
this feeling of guilt when I have to use a whiteboard, because of the eco
balance.

~~~
Dylan16807
Mining and shipping chalk isn't environmentally free either.

~~~
the_gastropod
Virtually no consumption of any kind is environmentally free. But some things
are less costly than others (like chalk is to plastic)

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DiThi
I'm surprised Velleda doesn't get a single mention. They were* synonymous with
whiteboard markers here in Spain. Quality and durability were very high. The
smell was strong but I liked it much more than other markers.

I can barely find any information about it before it belonged to Bic. It used
to have the brand "Conté".

* and still are, making it even more difficult to find information.

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bitshiffed
Is there something off about those photos, or are all those "green"s very
cyan?

~~~
macintux
Good point, not sure what to make of that. Given the nightmare that is color
management, hard for me to guess what went wrong.

~~~
zokier
If I had to guess, then maybe something to do with the poor spectrum of the
office lights (fluorescent?) that combined with narrow enough spectral
response of the camera sensor make the curious effect. I think it is
interesting how uniformly cyan the greens are, suggesting maybe that they are
based on a similar dye?

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chasedehan
Its amazing what HN can do for you. I have never cared about whiteboard
markers but just spent 20 minutes reading about the differences and then
looking on amazon to see what the price differences are.

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megaman22
Time for some heresy... I just do not understand the obsession with
whiteboards that seems to be almost a requirement among programmers and
software engineers. I've probably used a whiteboard by choice two or three
times in the last ten years. They are terrible; I'd much rather scrawl on a
regular sheet of paper, if it's throw-away stuff, or fire up Visio if it's
something worth keeping.

~~~
eponeponepon
My working assumption is that it makes a certain type of person feel like
they're doing Real Academic Stuff, and not just showing off that they can
remember syntax without an IDE highlighting their screwups.

(full disclosure: I cannot remember syntax without an IDE highlighting my
screwups)

~~~
__s
I'm at a workplace where 5 of our walls have been coated into being white
boards. We also have a couple of whiteboards on wheels. We don't write code on
whiteboards. Instead, we tend to write: data diagrams, UI mock up discussions,
project planning, month end acknowledgements, scrum board notes / grids, brain
storming (often in meetings), retro columns of good/bad/ugly, announcements to
the office like new wifi password or when people are away

Recently we started a new project. I worked out a database schema around the
concept of an Entity Component System. You have an Entity table with a primary
id column & nothing else, & no other table has a primary key. I scribbled out
some tables manually & was able to demonstrate the flexibility this enables to
the team

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blt
the most important thing is to have a huge stock of whiteboard markers, like
40 of them, and order more when it gets down to 20. much time is wasted
searching for good whiteboard markers. bad markers add mental overhead of
deciphering faint lines when the material presented is already challenging.
chalk has neither problem.

~~~
reificator
I would take either of those downsides over the sound of chalk.

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joezydeco
Am I the only one that finds the caps on Expo markers tear the tip apart after
a few dozen open/close cycles?

A brand new Expo marker is a joy, but a month-old one tends to be a piece of
shit.

~~~
CarVac
I use them for months without that ever happening, and I'm very particular
about capping them every single time I even pause for a short time.

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f_allwein
Side point: can I suggest we all throw away whiteboard markers that don't work
any more? In my experience, people will just place them back in the tray and
keep trying other markers until they find one that works. There is probably
someone whose job it is to replace markers, but they would just replace
missing ones rather than try every single one to see if they still work. So
throwing away dead markers speeds up the process.

Or use refillable markers, of course.

~~~
jdblair
JDB's Whiteboard Marker Org Health Metric: The ratio of dead whiteboard
markers to working whiteboard markers at an organization is proportional to
the health of the workplace culture.

Lots of dried out markers signal a workplace culture where people are too lazy
to throw the markers out and replace them or where working markers are not
available (possible money issues).

~~~
jdblair
Corollary: if you are interviewing for a job and there are lots of dried out
markers you may not want to work at the company.

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
Great, because the whole hiring process needed another voodoo variable.

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tdalaa
Got way too much pleasure from this! I use these all day. Will now never not
think about this every time I pick one up.

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pimlottc
I feel it's necessary to post this equally obsessive companion piece about
whiteboard cleaners:

[http://rumkin.com/reference/whiteboard/cleaners.php](http://rumkin.com/reference/whiteboard/cleaners.php)

~~~
ScottBurson
I bought the MB10W cleaner on the recommendation of this article and have been
very happy with it.

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btgeekboy
Somewhat validates my preferences, as well. Work seems to have both Staples-
branded markers and Expo markers. I'll go for the Expo markers every time,
primarily because the Staples ones don't erase well at all after being on the
board for a few days.

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colinloretz
As a coworking space operator, I thank you for this treasure trove of
whiteboard marker research.

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mechhrt
This is a great example of knowledge that should be on a webpage somewhere. I
feel the Medium format is really limiting the presentation of the information.

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fma
I've purchased markers from Dollar Tree. I wish he had compared to those. For
my purpose they work and a hell lot cheaper.

~~~
freshyill
I wish he included Amazon Basics markers, because in my experience they’re
garbage and I’d like some validation. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

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Splendor
Quartet makes my favorite dry erase markers. I'm curious how they would have
fared.

[https://smile.amazon.com/Quartet-Accessory-EnduraGlide-
Assor...](https://smile.amazon.com/Quartet-Accessory-EnduraGlide-
Assorted-5001M-5SK/dp/B0054TMPZU/)

------
knolan
Slow day in the office?!

I use a roll of dry erase film for the walls of my lab. They stick to wall
with static charge. I can keep pieces of work on the wall for reference for
weeks by just moving them to out of reach areas. It does make me look a little
mad...

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car
Found these to be a good and cheap whiteboards, have them all around the house
for notes, reminders and brainstorming:
[https://teslaamazing.com](https://teslaamazing.com)

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dfee
Are there best practices for clearing a whiteboard?

After a day with writing left on the board, I usually have to get a couple
folks to help me scrub it down with Lysol wipes and dry that off with paper
towels just to get it back to clean.

~~~
scott_s
Water works fine. I have left things up on my white board for more than a
_year_ , and I can get it off with water, paper towels, some grit and
patience.

~~~
thomastjeffery
> some grit and patience.

I think the point is to avoid that when it is trivial to do so.

~~~
scott_s
When water is readily available from multiple sources literally _on tap_ ,
I'll happily just use that.

~~~
thomastjeffery
That's totally fine.

But if using water requires "grit and patience", and this is something you do
regularly, it's reasonable to want to replace "grit and patience" with a
solvent.

~~~
scott_s
Grit and patience is only required when I leave things up for a year. Which
does happen.

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jwilk
Why would anyone want a grey marker?

~~~
thomastjeffery
To write with lower contrast. What you write in grey will (hopefully) blend
into the background, allowing your mind to focus on the other colors.

This is a common tactic with text editors: drawing comments using a very low-
contrast color.

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rhizome
This is a beautiful thing.

