Windows Low Vision: Windows Magnifier

Did you know that Windows has a built-in magnifier? Hi, I'm Vikki Vaughan, and together we'll take a look at this handy tool.

For many people with low vision, the Magnifier is their go-to tool for using the computer. With a simple command, we can easily enlarge items on the screen to find the applications we want, create and edit documents, and move between websites. We can use keyboard shortcuts to choose whatever magnification level we need for a particular task. We can also customize our viewing window, whether we prefer a full screen or a magnifying lens mode. All of these great options are found in the Windows Ease of Access menu.

Let's open our Ease of Access tab and check it out. We'll use the keyboard shortcut of Windows and the letter U to open the Ease of Access tab. We do that by holding down the Windows key, and then we tap and release the letter U. A handy tip, think of the word usable. Since the options we're talking about make our computer more usable, this will help us remember our shortcut.

On the left side of our screen under Settings, we find a list of customizing tools. About halfway down the list, we find Magnifier, our focus for today. When we select this option on the left side, various magnification controls appear on the right side. Now that we found the magnification options, let's see what type of controls we have.

Below a description of the Magnifier, we find our first control, a toggle switch to turn on and off Magnifier. Let's select it with our mouse pointer to have a look. With the Magnifier on, we see an enlarged view of our screen with a small overlay in the shape of a rectangle. This is Magnifier's floating toolbar.

Let's start off by moving our toolbar to a different position. By selecting the tool bar and dragging it with our mouse, we can place it anywhere on our screen.

Now let's move across the top of the tool bar, where we see the minimize icon followed by the close icon. Along the bottom of the toolbar, we find minus and plus symbols. We use these tools to adjust the level of magnification to fit our needs. Between them, we see a number in percentage form. This is the current level of magnification. It's set at whatever level was previously selected.

Moving to the right, we have several tools which are controls for the Magnifier reader. This tool allows us to read text aloud, whether it's a document, an email or a web page. The final tool is the options tool. By selecting it, we open a new window. Here we find additional controls for customizing reading speed and the voice. If you'd like to learn more about this awesome tool, be sure to check out the workshop in this series called Magnifier Reader.

Let's return to our Magnifier page. Now, I'm a big fan of keyboard shortcuts. They are a fast and easy way to open Magnifier on the fly. Below our Magnifier toggle control, we find the keyboard shortcuts to turn on and off Magnifier. We press the Windows key and the plus sign to turn it on while the Windows key and Escape turn it off. Let's give this a try.

Moving down the Magnifier screen, we see another control for zooming in and out of our screen. By selecting the Windows key and the plus or minus buttons, we can make things bigger or smaller. We can also change the zoom increments by selecting this dropdown menu.

Next, Windows gives us a really handy tip here for zooming in and out of the screen. When we hold down the Control and Alt keys and move the scroll wheel on our mouse away from us, we zoom in. To zoom back out, we hold down the Control and Alt keys and move the scroll wheel toward us.

The next set of controls are check boxes. By selecting the first check box, we start Magnifier automatically after signing into our computer. Checking the second check box starts Magnifier automatically before signing in for everyone who uses the computer. Our next check box is checked by default. When checked, it smooths the edges of images and text, which is helpful when we're zoomed in at a high level. The last check box in this group inverts the colors. This is a great tool for those of us who are sensitive to bright light. We can invert the colors on the fly when using the Magnifier with the keyboard shortcut of Control, plus Alt, plus I for invert. Be sure to check out the High Contrast workshop in this series for more information about this helpful feature.

Moving down the page, we find a dropdown menu that allows us to select our preferred viewing mode. Let's select it to have a look. Our current viewing mode is full screen. This mode enlarges the entire screen, but we can see only a portion of the screen at any one time. The focus moves as we move our mouse.

The next viewing mode is lens. This makes our Magnifier act much like a handheld Magnifier. It creates a magnified window that follows the focus as we move around the screen. In the lens mode, we have a small preview window which lets us set the height and width of the magnified lens. We can use our mouse pointer or our arrow keys to move these slider bars on the sides of the window to control the size to fit our needs.

Our final viewing option is docked. This view creates a window where we see an enlarged view of part of the screen. We can change the size and location of the window by using our mouse to grab and drag the border to create a larger docked window. Below our dropdown menu, we find the shortcut to cycle through the views. When we hold down the Control and Alt keys and press M for menus, we cycle through each of the three viewing options. This is a handy way to quickly choose the right view mode for a particular task.

Next, we find the keyboard shortcut for preview full screen. This handy tool quickly zooms out of the magnified view and displays the entire screen. Let's check it out in a Word document. We'll use the keyboard shortcut Control, plus Alt, plus space bar to open this tool. Preview highlights the magnified area while showing the area outside the magnified view as dark gray. After zooming out for a few seconds, we automatically zoom back in and return to the full screen mode. This technique is really helpful when we're unsure of our location on the screen.

Back at our Magnifier options page, there are a couple of more features to explore. The next set of controls are checked by default. We see a group of check boxes that let us control which items the magnified view focuses on. Many users want the magnified view to follow the mouse pointer, the keyboard focus and the text cursor. For those of us who are not using Narrator, Windows' screen reading program, we would leave the Narrator checkbox unchecked. Play around with these controls to see what works best for you.

The last really cool control that we'll explore today lets us choose how our mouse pointer and our text cursor behave when using Magnifier. The first dropdown box has two options for where we keep our pointer: within the edges of the screen or centered on the screen. We can see that with the first choice, our pointer remains within the edges of the magnified view. When we select the centered option, our mouse pointer stays in the central part of the magnified view. Many users find that keeping their pointer centered on the screen makes it easier to track, especially at high zoom levels.

The next dropdown box lets us choose where to keep our text cursor. As with the mouse pointer, we can either keep the cursor within the edges of the screen or centered on the screen. The final control is Magnifier Reader. This tool is so amazing. It has its own workshop in this series. I hope you'll check it out.

In today's workshop, we learned all about Windows Magnifier in the Ease of Access menu. I'm Vikki Vaughan, and I thank you for joining me.