Picture of the Magnifier Show and Hide Buttons

Magnifier

The magnifier can give you a virtual Magnifying Glass. It is a great tool if you occasionally need to look at things that are too small for you to easily see.

The magnifier also has other modes for people who must use a magnifier all the time.

Quick Demo

More About Magnifier…

Play video

Adjusting the amount of magnification

You can change the magnification in the Magnification Settings Panel 

  • Right-click on the Magnifier’s Show (or Hide) button on the MorphicBar and select “Settings“ 

NOTE: There are also hidden ways to change the magnification without going to the control panel 

  • On Windows 10
    1. Click on the Show button to show the magnifier
    2. Then hold down the Windows key and press + or – to change magnification
  • On a Mac
    1. Click on the Show button to show the magnifier
    2. Then hold down the Command key and “Scroll” using one of the following techniques:
      1. If you have a scroll-wheel on your mouse – just roll that (while holding down the Command key), OR
      2. If you use Magic Mouse – hold down the command key and push one finger up and down. (See the lower part of the multi-touch gestures document.) OR
      3. If you have scrolling enabled for your touchpad, you can use two fingers on your apple touchpad and move up and down to scroll.

Once you have changed the magnification – it will use that same magnification whenever you click on the SHOW button to show the magnifying glass.

Other Settings

The settings panels also allow you to make other changes to your magnifiers. 

On the PC in Windows 10 you can also:

  • Change the size of the magnifying glass
  • Have it follow the mouse – or keyboard focus – or text insertion point – or narrator (screen reader)
  • Invert colors
  • Smooth images and text 
  • More

On the Mac (macOS 10.2 and above) you can also:

  • Change which key you use with scroll to zoom
  • Enable “hover text”, which enlarges text if you point to it and pause
  • Invert colors
  • Smooth images and text 
  • More

Advanced Magnifier Options

In addition to the “Magnifying Glass Mode” (called the “Lens” mode on PC and “Picture-in-Picture” mode on Mac) the magnifier feature on both Windows and macOS have other modes as well. 

  • Docked Mode (PC) or Split Screen Mode (Mac) –  Here the top part of your screen is the magnifier and the lower part of your screen is the normal screen. As you point to things on the lower part – you will see a magnification of what you are pointing at – on the top of the screen.
  • Full-Screen Mode  – Here your whole screen is your magnifying glass. You move your mouse around to move the magnifier around on the screen.  You can either have the magnifier follow your mouse as you move it — or you can have it so that you push the magnifier around by moving your mouse to the edge of the screen and pushing the magnifier window

You can see a demonstration of both of these modes in the “More about Magnifier” video at the top of this page.

Frequently Asked Questions

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1. Will the magnifier work with all apps?

Because this is applied at the video level – it will work with all applications.  It will not however be visible to others when you screen share – such as with Zoom or other screen sharing programs.

2. How can I make the magnifier more powerful (more magnification) ?

See Adjusting the amount of magnification above.

3. Can I make just the main text in one application larger? (rather than whole screen)

Some applications let you “Zoom” the body of the window (but not menus and the rest of your screen). 

  • To try is on a  PC
    • try holding down the CTRL key and pressing the key with the + sign on it.
      • (use the minus sign key – to make it smaller)
    • You can also try holding the CTRL key while you use the scroll wheel on the mouse
    • This will work in some applications but not all
  • To try is on a  Mac
    • try holding down the Command key and pressing the key with the + sign on it.
    • You can also try holding the Command key while you use the scroll wheel on the mouse
    • This will work in some applications but not all.

4. I need the text to be even bigger than Magnifier will go. What can I do?

First try the techniques under the question just above this. 

There are also other commercial Magnifier programs and devices for people who need things to be very large.   

Go to the Unified Listing and search for magnifier.

5. Things go off-screen and I get lost looking at the screen when I use the full screen magnification. What can I do?

You might try first using Text Size to make everything on screen larger without having the problems of content going off-screen like you do with a magnifier.

Then use the magnifying glass to enlarge just the part of the screen you need to see more clearly.  Some people find it easier to keep their screen orientation this way. 

If that is not sufficient – see question just above.

6. I use keyboard navigation. Is there an easier way to get to the settings panel?

Yes – the settings for all of the Morphic buttons (as well as many more) are available through the Morphic menu.  Just click on the Morphic icon on the MorphicBar and select “More settings to make your computer easier”.

7. When I open the “settings” for the magnifier (on a Mac) it takes me to Zoom instead. Where are magnifier settings?

On the Mac, (for historical reasons) the magnifying function is called Zoom.   It has 3 modes.  

  1. Picture-in-picture: Which is the magnifying glass like mode that Morphic starts out with
  2. Split-Screen: Which is called “Docked” on the PC and provides a fixed view at the edge that shows a magnified view of wherever you point the mouse on the rest of the screen.
  3. Full Screen: Which allows you to zoom into any part of the screen with the rest of the screen shifting off screen to the sides.  This was the original form and the source of the name Zoom. 

So, on the Mac, the Zoom settings are the “Magnifier” settings that Morphic turns on and off.