How to do a quick zoom on your Mac laptop

How to do a quick zoom on your Mac laptop
Mac Tip #411, 18 November 2009

Sometimes you want to quickly zoom in on a part of your Mac’s screen, to see something a bit closer. This is easy to do on a laptop, provided you’ve set it up first in System Preferences.

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Set up zooming

Open System Preferences from the Apple menu, and go to the Trackpad preference pane. Check the box beside Zoom while holding.

Now choose a zoom key. I like to use Control myself. Next click the button to set zoom Options.

Trackpad zoom options.

You might want to experiment with the three different options here. I prefer to move the screen image Continuously with pointer.

Press the Done button to save your choices.

Close the System Preferences and experiment with zooming.

Zoom and move

To zoom in on a MacBook (Pro) hold down the Control key and use two fingers on the trackpad. Drag upwards towards the spacebar to zoom in and make text and pictures on the screen bigger.

After zooming in, release the Control key and drag with one finger to move the window around.

Hold down the Control key and drag downwards, away from towards the spacebar, to zoom out and return the screen to your usual view.

I don’t have a desktop computer, and I don’t use a mouse so can’t give any Tips about how to do this if you don’t have a laptop. Please add your desktop Mac zooming tips in the comments.

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