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Change The Firefox Default Zoom Level

Martin Brinkmann — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 14:16:49 +0000

Firefox, like any other web browser, offers options to zoom in or out of a web page temporarily which can be useful if a website uses fonts that are either to large or to small. Another application is to increase the font size if high-definition displays are used. Two of the biggest complaints about Firefox’s zooming feature are the inabilities to save zoom levels for future browsing sessions and to set a different zoom level for all websites by default.

Default FullZoom Level is a handy add-on for Firefox 3.6 and later that offers to resolve both issues and more. Its first feature is the ability to set a specific default zoom level. Users who want bigger fonts for instance can increase the zoom level to 125 or 150, or any percentage value in between. The opposite is possible as well, any number below 100 would make the font on the screen smaller. The effect is immediate and valid for all web pages in the browser. Even better, the zoom level is automatically set to the selected value on every start of the browser.

Another bonus: Default FullZoom Level remembers site specific zoom levels which makes it useful even for Firefox users who do not want to change the default zoom level for all websites. Users just need to change the zoom level on an individual web page (for instance by using Ctrl-mousewheel or Ctrl- or Ctrl+) to make the changed zoom level the default from then on.

The same is possible for locally saved files. Changing the default zoom level and setting custom zoom levels for specific websites is already very useful, but the extension offers additional features that may be interesting for some users.

The Fit To Windows options can be used to automatically fit the zoom level to the open window with options to define a minimum and maximum zoom level automatically.

Default FullZoom Level is a handy Firefox extension for users who regularly use the zoom feature in the browser or wish that the browser had an option to set a new default zoom level.

Firefox Mouse Zoom

Martin Brinkmann — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:32:25 +0000

Users of the Firefox web browser can zoom in and out of pages that are displayed in the Internet browser by using the menu or keyboard shortcuts to do so. The [Ctrl +] and [Ctrl -] keyboard shortcut will zoom in and out of a page which might sometimes be necessary to read all the text and information presented on the website.

The Mouse Zoom add-on for Firefox adds zooming to the mouse as well which has the advantage that it can be done easier than with the keyboard shortcuts or menu. A right-click and the use of the mouse wheel will increase or decrease the zoom on the specific page only. The zoom level will be remembered by the web browser so that the same view becomes available when navigating the website or accessing it at a later browsing session.

Mouse Zoom displays the zoom in the Firefox status bar. A left-click on the icon will open the add-on’s options which can be used to configure the onscreen display of the zoom during changes, the status bar icon and the zoom levels offered by the software.

The zoom level can be used to configure individual zoom levels that can be activated with the mouse wheel up to a maximum zoom level of 300%.

The add-on offers a handful of additional options including the option to reset the zoom level to the default value by holding the right-mouse button and left-clicking or pressing the middle-mouse button instead to hide the toolbars.

Mouse Zoom is compatible up to Firefox 3.5x. Users of Firefox 3.6x can force compatibility to make it work in their version as well.

Firefox 3 Site Specific Zoom

Martin Brinkmann — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:14:44 +0000

The last article about Firefox’s zoom capabilities received several interesting comments about the zoom function. What many users who commented did not know was that the zooming behavior changed in Firefox 3. It is still possible to zoom in or out of a website using keyboard shortcuts or the Firefox menu but observant visitors will notice that the zoom level seems to get saved on a per-domain basis. This means that the actual zoom level will always be saved in Firefox 3 and therefor be displayed whenever the user visits a page on the domain.

In short: Firefox 3 will remember the current zoom level and display any page on the domain in it. This can lead to all kinds of troubles if a user does not know that Firefox 3 stores that setting. There is however a new parameter in the Firefox configuration that can be changed to disable the automatic storage of zoom levels in Firefox 3.

Type [about:config] in the Firefox 3 location bar and filter for the following term: browser.zoom.siteSpecific. The default value for the parameter is true which means that the feature is enabled. To disable it simply double-click the entry so that it changes to false. This has the effect that Firefox 3 will not remember the zoom level and display all websites in default view.

How To Zoom In Firefox

Martin Brinkmann — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 16:55:46 +0000

I recently had two conversations with Firefox users who did not know that Firefox came with the means to zoom in and out of a website. They were using external applications to magnify parts of the screen and where surprised that they could achieve the same effect with less work.

All of the zooming options are available from the View menu in Firefox. Firefox users find options to zoom in, zoom out and restore the default level in the Zoom submenu there. There is also one additional option to change the default zoom behavior to only zoom the text of a website. The default behavior is to zoom all elements of a website. Not many users will use the View > Zoom menu though to zoom in Firefox. It simply takes to long which is why the same effect can be achieved with keyboard shortcuts:

Zoom in: [CTRL +] or [CTRL Mousewheel up]
Zoom out: [CTRL -] or [CTRL Mousewheel down]
Reset Zoom: [CTRL 0]

The keyboard shortcuts come in really handy if you stumble upon badly designed websites or those that use images or other elements that are barely decipherable in default view. The only thing that one should realize is that the zoom level works on a domain basis. Multiple pages of the same domain that are opened in different tabs will all be effected by the zoom.