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About

PenAttention is a free Windows program that displays a highlight, pencil, or pointer at the location of the pen. It's intended for use in presentations on a pen-enabled laptop or PC so your audience can see what you're pointing at on the screen, since most programs show the pen's location with an eensy-weenie-teenie-tiny dot that is almost impossible to see on a projector screen. For a demo, see the overview video.

This program is distributed under the MIT License.

3/15/2023 Note: PenAttention currently does not recognize a stylus in several programs (most notably, OneNote). I am looking for a workaround and will update if one can be found. As of this writing it does work with versions of PowerPoint and other PDF writable-programs.

Windows 8.1 and higher

Windows 7 and Lower

Requirements

Change Log

v11: 7/5/2021
  - Fixed division by zero error that could happen on startup
  - Removed extended screen mirroring feature
  - Replaced screen scaling with accurate built-in scaling and multiple monitor support

v10: 7/3/2016
  - Updates to support pen in Windows 8.1 or Windows 10; 
  - Support for display scaling factor
  - Automatically distinguish pen vs. mouse for Windows 8.1 or Windows 10
  - Gma DLL for global mouse hook
  - Fixed bug to revert settings if "no" is selected from save

v1.4: 12/24/2010
  - Hotkey support to toggle on/off using CTRL-F9 or CTRL-ALT-F9
  - Allows custom image to be used in place of the default pencil.  The custom image should be named CustomPen.png and placed in the installation folder.

v1.3: 1/03/2010
  - Support for mapping to extended displays (displays a highlight on 
    extended displays like Microsoft PowerPoint in Presenter View mode
    or Classroom Presenter in Dual-Monitor Output Mode)
  - Support for rectangular highlight (useful for highlighting text 
    passages or lines)
  - Right-click to toggle highlight color
  - Fixed bug failing to display the icon if starting up in pen or pointer mode

v1.2: 1/05/2009
  - 64 bit versions released

v1.2: 6/26/2008
  - CursorAttention released

v1.2: 5/10/2008
  - Fixed issue that caused flickering in some programs 
    (e.g. PowerPoint full screen) and
    problems drawing in Sticky Notes.
  - Added dialog box to allow the user to modify the color, size, and opacity 
    if highlighting is selected
  - Ability to highlight the mouse in addition to the pen

v1.01: 5/8/2008
  - Fixed bug that prevented the program from working on XP Tablet
  - Fixed bug requiring UAC or Protected Mode to be disabled to operate 
    from Internet Explorer on Vista

v1.0: 4/18/2008
  -  Initial release

Email any questions or comments to Kenrick Mock: kenrick@acm.org