Mac OS X zoom in application with mouse wheel
I am coming from Windows and miss the feature that allows to increase/decrease the text size in many applications (Chrome, PDF readers, Text editors,...) by using CTRL-MouseWheel. Instead the size of the whole display increases which is not what I want.
Any help appreciated
311 Answers
There's no such feature on the Mac - as you say, the only equivalent feature is to zoom the whole screen, when you turn on 'Zoom' in the Universal Access preference pane. To increase just the text size, you'll need to see if there's an option for this in individual programs' menus (as there is for some browsers, for example - e.g. in Safari, select 'Zoom Text Only' from the View menu, and then 'Zoom in' or 'Zoom out' from that menu).
4Per-app "zooming" (and text resizing) is common on the Mac via pinch/unpinch gestures on trackpads, and via keyboard shortcuts like Cmd+ and Cmd-, but it's not common via the scroll wheel.
Full-screen zooming via the scroll wheel can be enabled in the Universal Access pane of System Preferences.
5Command(plus)+ and Command(plus)- works in TextEdit.
I switched to Mac 1 year ago and I remember the weird feeling i use to get when Ctrl won't work like the way i wanted to.
Usually you can use Command button as equivalent to Windows Control button. e.g. Ctrl+C = Command+C
To increase/decrease size in browser, you can swipe two fingers outward to Zoomin and two fingers inward to Zoom-out.
As you will find out, zoom is much more Easier to do in Mac.
Tip: You can also Press control button and while keeping it pressed, use two finders upward and downward to Zoom the whole screen.
1"I'm a PC" but I have had to convert to Mac, for work. BetterTouchTool has saved most of my hair the last few weeks.
Through this app you can customise your Mac to do all sorts of things that you would normally do on your PC, like WIN + LEFTARROW etc.
You can also set application specific gestures etc whereby you can add the zoom in/out feature of Chrome - just like for the PC.
Try it out!
0If you use a Logitech mouse on Logi Options app; go to any button control and switch it to "zoom with mouse wheel". you can then use the programmed button as a "modifier" to switch the wheel from scrolling to zooming in preview and safari. This works really well for me so far. In preview it even scrolls to the cursor center!
1I made Mac Mouse Fix.
It lets you zoom in and out by scrolling while holding the Command (⌘) key. It works just like pinch-to-zoom on an Apple Trackpad.
On top of that it's open source, easy to use, 100% free, and it also has a bunch of other cool features that make your mouse better!
1IF trying to zoom in and out of pdfs in Adobe, do the following:
Open Adobe Acrobat- Go to preferences- Under the "General" tab, select "Make hand tool use mouse-wheel zooming"- Click Ok- Done
This will allow you to zoom in just on the pdf that you are viewing using just the scroll wheel. You do not have to hold down control while doing this.
1Logitech mouse can easily setting up Zoom gestures on Logi Options app, the app can be downloaded from Logitech website.
Option 1: Use the preset gestures for zoom in/out and smart zoom
Option 2: Customise gestures by zooming using scroll wheel
Sort of same situation here. I found that using Ctrl + Cmd (or Ctrl + Alt) and the wheel (actually, two finger scrolling as I'm using a trackpad) works for zooming in and out in MS Office for the Mac. It seems like somehow adding a key to the combo overrides the usual whole screen zooming typical of the Mac.
Anyhow, I just found this behaviour in Office. Other apps work as mentioned in other answers: use the pinch gesture, of Cmd + Plus or Cmd + Minus for zooming in and out.
My configuration: MacOS X 10.6.4. Office 2011.
First check this link for:
1- Mac Pro and iMac
2- MacBook Pro (or MacBook)
3- Mac OS X with a Magic Mouse
Also this link shared a user's experience about how he found a workaround. He Turned off his iMac, changed his mouse for an Apple one then turned his iMac back on. The option became available, thus he checked it and changed the mouse again.
If you have not been able to work it out, I suggest you look into the preference of your mouse third-party software. It has most likely an option enabling you to do so as I made it work for my Logitech with Unifying Dongle.
1There are two quick ways to zoom in/out on browser windows.
- Hold the Ctrl key down, and push or pull the scroll-wheel on your mouse.
- Hold the Cmd key down, and press the + key to zoom in (make the image bigger), or the - key to zoom out.
Lastly, Cmd-0 brings you back to a "normal" screen having used either method above.
NOTE: you do NOT have to Shift when using the + key, so basically it's the = key.
Firefox has a View->Zoom menu with a "Zoom Text Only" check box that appears to work. Images do NOT change size. Safari also has that option under its View menu.
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