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Accepted
Sabrina
Asked: 2019-05-19 00:32:51 +0800 CST

How to magnify a screen area in Lubuntu 18.04

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There is a feature to magnify a screen area in Ubuntu. I've been trying it on Lubuntu 18 but it doesn't work.

What should I do to make this work on Lubuntu?

If this feature is not available in Lubuntu, what is alternative for this?

Reference https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/a11y-mag.html.en

Update

I've tested both xzoom and KMag and found KMag is better than xzoom. So I accepted that answer. If you know better apps, please let me know.

lubuntu

2 Answers

  1. Not that I am aware of, there's none default screen magnifier app for Lubuntu.

    But you can install it. xzoom able to magnify part of the screen. 

    sudo apt install xzoom

    Navigate to LXMenu → Universal Access → Screen Magnifier

    enter image description here

    Drag your mouse cursor to area that you want to magnify. Below youtube videos explain it better.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li45HK0YEQ0

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  2. Best Answer

    I have asked about your Zoom issue here. My feeling is that some features of Ubuntu such as zoom and night light are integrated into gnome-shell and not available for installation in other desktop environments such as Lubuntu's.

    While xzoom does address the basic issue of magnifying content (and is included in Ubuntu Mate), there is another program, kmag, which comes with more features. However, it should be noted that kmag is a qt-based application and so will pull in a lot of dependencies on Lubuntu 18.04. This should normally not be an issue with modern systems, but it is better to be aware. By the way, if you move up to the LXQt-based Lubuntu 18.10 or later, the additional dependencies will be minimal.

    With

    sudo apt install kmag

    I see:

    0 upgraded, 119 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 21.9 MB of archives. After this operation, 115 MB of additional disk space will be used.

    And with 

    sudo apt install --no-install-recommends kmag

    I see

    0 upgraded, 99 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 18.2 MB of archives. After this operation, 98.7 MB of additional disk space will be used.

    What you see on your system in terms of dependencies maybe less if you already have other qt-based applications installed.

    Here's an animated gif of some of the features kmag provides.

    kmag features

    The snap route Kmag is available as a verified snap as well. Currently, the information provided by snap info kmag doesn't indicate the actual disk space used in case that is a matter of concern. See my question How do I know what a snap will install? to know more.

    Links:

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