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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.

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.

Zoom It

Martin Brinkmann — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 10:19:41 +0000

ZoomIt is a freeware from Sysinternals which lets you zoom into part of your screen. With resolutions beyond 1600*1200 it becomes more urgent to have a utility that lets you zoom into part of your screen to magnify that part. It is also nice if you want to take a closer look at low resolution images for instance.

ZoomIt displays a configuration menu at the first startup. You can configure hotkeys for various aspects of the tool (hotkey for Zooming, breaking and drawing). It is a great tool for presentations as well, if you run them using a notebook and beamer for instance. Zoom the important part so everyone gets a better view of that part.