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stanimir
Asked: 2011-11-25 10:10:13 +0800 CST

How to zoom in & zoom out

  • 772

While using 10.04 and the previous versions I used to put Ctrl+F6 to zoom in and subsequently Ctrl+F7 to zoom out. Now (using 11.10, Unity) I can't even find the options to zoom in and zoom out in the "keyboard shortcuts". I tried "the Magnifier" in the Compiz but really can't understand what is going on right there. There is simple question I would like to ask:

What to do so as to be able to zoom in with Ctrl+F6 and zoom out with Ctrl+F7?

zooming

7 Answers

  1. Gnome Shell / Ubuntu 17.10+ : Magnifier

    With GNOME Shell (instead of Compiz) as Window Manager (wmctrl -m):

    • Super+Alt+8: Toggle zoom enabled/disabled
    • Super+Alt++/-: To increase/decrease zoom.
      On some non-English keyboard layouts + won't work, try 0 instead.

    Surprisingly, numpad +/- won't work.

    You can change the shortcuts on Settings > Devices > Keyboard and zoom options on Settings > Universal access settings > Zoom:

    screenshot

    Source.

    Issues

    • Screenshot of an area (Ctrl + Shift + PrntScrn seems to be broken when zoom is enabled. It captures a region with an offset.
    • Does not start to zoom where the pointer is located, and in general you might find it very buggy.
    • AFAIK there is no way (as in XFCE) to smoothly zoom in/out with mousewheel/scroll. Couldn't find even a GNOME extension.

    See also

    • Magnify a screen area

    • Orca: Orca is a free, open source, flexible, and extensible screen reader that provides access to the graphical desktop via speech and refreshable braille.

    • On 20.04 with gnome-shell 3.36.9 it seems to be a bug that slow down everything when zoom is enabled. journalctl -p warning -xef return

      gnome-shell[3302]: clutter_actor_allocate: assertion '!isnan (real_allocation.x1) && !isnan (real_allocation.x2) && !isnan (real_allocation.y1) && !isnan (real_allocation.y2)' failed
gnome-shell[3302]: clutter_actor_allocate: assertion '!isnan (real_allocation.x1) && !isnan (real_allocation.x2) && !isnan (real_allocation.y1) && !isnan (real_allocation.y2)' failed
gnome-shell[3302]: Source ID 6859556 was not found when attempting to remove it
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  2. Unity (until Ubuntu 17.04)

    Unity Tweak Tool

    Other than the Compizconfig Settings Manager, a new configuration tool is now available called Unity Tweak Tool.

    Open Dash (by tapping on Super) and type "Unity Tweak Tool".

    Unity Tweak Tool in Dash

    If it is not available, you can install it from the command line with the following command:

    sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool

    Open the application, and from the icons choose General under the Window Manager section.

    Unity Tweak Tool Main Window

    Once you click General, enable the "Desktop magnification" option at the top. And you can change the default keyboard shortcuts of the Zoom In, and Zoom Out functionalities.

    As seen in the next screen-shot, I have the Zoom In set to Ctrl+Super+Z and the Zoom Out set to Ctrl+Shift+Super+Z

    Personally, I prefer including the Super key to all system wide shortcuts so it won't interfere with a certain application's shortcut.

    Unity Tweak Tool Zoom Functionality

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  3. Unity (until Ubuntu 17.04)

    CompizConfig Settings Manager

    1. Open CompizConfig Settings Manager.

    2. Go to Accessibility / Enhanced Zoom Desktop.

    3. Click on the "Disabled" titled Button of Zoom in, click on enable, grab key combination and press ctrl+f7. Do the same for Zoom out, and you are set.

      screenshot

    • 17

  4. In Xubuntu VMs you could also do: FN + ALT + Mouse Zoom

    • 7

  5. Ctl + Shift + - to reduce
    Ctl + Shift + + to increase

    I found you also need the + from numerical keypad not the one next to the backspace button.

    • 4

  6. On almost all web browsers it is worked for me:

    Ctrl + + will Zoom In.

    Ctrl + - will Zoom Out.

    • 0

  7. I found that ctrl and the + sign from the num pad works for zoom, and the same thing but the minus sign from the num pad zooms out. I am on ubuntu 18.04, hope this helps you

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