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How To Zoom In Firefox

Martin Brinkmann
Feb 23, 2009
Updated • Dec 29, 2013
Firefox
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41

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 natively in the browser as well.

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.

Note: The menu bar is not displayed anymore by default in newer versions of Firefox. You can tap on the Alt-key on your keyboard to bring it up, so that you can access the View menu and its zooming options.

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.

You can also add zoom control buttons to Firefox's interface. The easiest option to do so is to press Alt to bring up the main toolbar, and select View > Toolbars > Customize from it.

You need to locate the Zoom Controls button which you can drag and drop to a Firefox toolbar so that it becomes available there permanently.

Update: Firefox users can also install the Firefox Mouse Zoom extension which adds page zooming options for the mouse. It furthermore allows users to change the default zoom levels, for instance to make them more granular or increase the maximum zoom level available. The maximum zoom level is 300%, the minimum 30% which should be enough for all websites. A right-click on the page and the use of the mouse wheel zooms in or out of the active page.

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Comments

  1. gogi said on April 29, 2014 at 11:11 am
    Reply

    I had a problem with youtube screen size, zooming fixed it, thanx

  2. Anonymous said on November 25, 2012 at 11:48 pm
    Reply

    What all of this leaves off is that Zoom should be obvious and should not require one to do an online search to figure out how to do it.

  3. Robert Collins said on August 19, 2012 at 11:51 am
    Reply

    Thanks so much. A simple and straight forward answer.

  4. Anonymous said on August 14, 2012 at 5:07 pm
    Reply

    …But what can I disable the zooming in a web page by html code?

  5. Vince Cyboran said on February 14, 2012 at 2:31 am
    Reply

    Thanks so much!

  6. LOLER said on September 7, 2011 at 7:13 pm
    Reply

    THANK U FOR THE ZOOME!

    1. GUMMO said on September 10, 2011 at 4:59 am
      Reply

      THANK YOU.

  7. Harshit said on July 3, 2011 at 7:32 am
    Reply

    Thank u a lot genius

  8. Anonymous said on April 14, 2011 at 7:08 am
    Reply

    OMG THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  9. Cássio said on February 11, 2011 at 1:14 pm
    Reply

    thanks for the commands list!

  10. jesse said on January 17, 2011 at 1:26 am
    Reply

    Learning Excel was way easier!

  11. jesse said on January 17, 2011 at 1:20 am
    Reply

    6.000 add-ons and it simply could not import my ie bookmarks?. No forward or back buttton. Somebody needs to go back to school!

  12. jesse said on January 17, 2011 at 1:02 am
    Reply

    Back to IE for me!

  13. jesse said on January 17, 2011 at 1:00 am
    Reply

    Where are the the forward an back buttons? Do I need a stupid manual to use this browser? why not put view or zoom in the taskbar right click?
    1.This extension can change Default FullZoom Level.
    This extension is useful in the case of a high-definition display.

    2.Manual/Automatic Fit To Window Full Zoom.

    3. The zoom mode is restored every domain name or tab as well as the zoom level.

    4. In the case of a local file, you can set whether zoom every file or every folder.

    5. Two toolbar buttons are provided.
    “A”:Text Zoom BUtton.
    “P”:Full Zoom Button.
    Left, middle, right button click will enlarge, reset and reduce page or text respectively.
    Wheel button rotation will enlarge and reduce them.
    And Shift+right click show up the option dialog.

    6.Indicate Zoom level in Statusbar.
    Left click : popup zoom level list
    Middle click: reset zoom level
    Right click: toggle zoom mode.

    7. Keyboard shortcut:
    TextZoom reduce :accel+ , (comma)
    TextZoom reset :accel+ . (dot)
    TextZoom enlarge :accel+/
    Fullzoom reduce : default(accel+-)
    Fullzoom reset : default(accel+0)
    Fullzoom enlarge : default(accel++)
    Fullzoom Fit to window: accel+shift+?
    Where, An accel key may be a crtl key in Windows’s keyboard.

    WTF?

  14. jesse said on January 17, 2011 at 12:42 am
    Reply

    Most browsers have “view” or “zoom” option when you click on the the taskbar.
    This is completely assinine!

  15. chrisohio said on March 9, 2010 at 2:49 pm
    Reply

    I’m new to this and still somewhat confused … and my eyes are old too. I’ve been using IE and down in the lower right is an option to set pages at 100% or 125%, etc., and this ‘zoom’ level remains the same for any / all web pages, and needs not be re-set each time I open. I like Firefox quite well so far, but needing to set zoom size each time isn’t helpful. Ideas? Is there another tool / add-on that I am missing?

    1. Lady Neferankh said on March 28, 2010 at 11:27 pm
      Reply

      You can try this add on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2592 , that’s called NoSquint, it helps you set a “default” zoom setting for Firefox too!

  16. Pamela said on February 18, 2010 at 12:13 am
    Reply

    Thank you, thank you, thank you!

    I kept zooming out on my new laptop and couldn’t figure out what I was doing – or how to undo it. Now I know how to fix it, and maybe I can even learn how to quit zooming out accidentally :)

    Cheers

  17. chris said on December 17, 2009 at 7:16 pm
    Reply

    Should be a button or a mouse funkcion for zooming like in IE . I am tired using keyboard shortcuts.

  18. Ty said on October 29, 2009 at 5:35 am
    Reply

    Thankyou

    I needed this my eyes suck glasses broke uhhh lol thnx

  19. Anonymous said on October 29, 2009 at 5:32 am
    Reply

    Thankyou It helped i have old eyes

  20. Andrew said on October 10, 2009 at 1:12 am
    Reply

    why don’t they have zoom button right on the browser, like Safari? that is so much easier…SO MUCH!

    1. Ty said on October 29, 2009 at 5:36 am
      Reply

      I KNOW RIGHT :P

  21. flakes said on October 6, 2009 at 10:53 pm
    Reply

    As much as I like this feature, do not show it to people who are not very tech savy. I showed it to my copy editor and he showed it the main editor and now I have to periodically fix their browsers because the site is all bent out of shape.

    It is amazing how a person can increase a site’s size say 20 times, then decrease the font size 23 times, then go into the options to change the default font size, then wonder why the website looks weird and somehow the blame usually falls on the web designer. Plus the reset button doesn’t go back to the websites default unless you are very conservative with the way you increase and decrease sizes.

    To be honest I really hate this feature.

  22. Andrew said on August 16, 2009 at 6:33 pm
    Reply

    why the hell dont they have the zoom on the browser like Safari? one of the most common buttons, yet nothing…

  23. Firefox_User said on June 16, 2009 at 8:03 am
    Reply

    Found an add-on that does that. Thanks anyway!

  24. Firefox_User said on June 16, 2009 at 7:57 am
    Reply

    I use this function often.. but I’m trying to figure out if the zoom supports images like what IE does. When you zoom, they only manage texts, but not images / flash / others. Anybody know if its possible?

  25. VinceSh said on May 30, 2009 at 8:40 pm
    Reply

    I use this feature a lot, but there is one minor problem. Some pages that were set to a certain zoom level reset themselves to the default zoom level every time I visit them. One such site is news.yahoo.com. Another is tvguide.com. Is there any way I can stop these web sites from reseting my chosen zoom level?

  26. Jish said on April 16, 2009 at 11:26 pm
    Reply

    Thanks I knew it was there but never knew it was that simple to find

  27. DoHi said on February 24, 2009 at 5:16 pm
    Reply

    I have to admit I never knew about this one, should definitely come in handy. Thanks heaps.
    Now what’s this ctrl+c you talk about? (sorry I jest)

  28. AussieRodney said on February 24, 2009 at 10:03 am
    Reply

    Yep, know all about Ctrl-C, Ctrl-X & Ctrl-V, but I have never come across this one before.

    Just goes to show we never stop finding new things to learn.

  29. Wapi said on February 24, 2009 at 1:23 am
    Reply

    A great FF extension for page zooming is Default FullZoom Level. It stores the zoom level for each website.

    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6965

    1. Martin said on February 24, 2009 at 9:56 am
      Reply

      Today I stumbled upon something interesting. I changed the zoom level of a website, closed Firefox, restarted the web browser afterwards and loaded the page again. The zoom level was still on the changed level. Can it be that firefox stores Zoom levels now?

  30. Jojo said on February 24, 2009 at 1:12 am
    Reply

    I can zoom via my Cirque touchpad mouse which simulates a mouse wheel.

    But d zooming work adequately on an LCD monitor? I keep my 20″ CRT (running 1660 x 1200 resolution) because I thought that LCD monitors didn’t work well if you changed text from the native size.

    1. Martin said on February 24, 2009 at 9:45 am
      Reply

      I’m not an expert on the topic but does not the screen resolution stay the same all the time even when zooming?

  31. craig said on February 23, 2009 at 11:59 pm
    Reply

    Yeah I’m with “Satanicat” – thought everyone knew about this.

    On the same topic – Does anyone know why when I open Yahoo Mail using FireFox my screen zooms in-and-out, and finally settles on the zoomed in mode. it’s easily correctible by clicking “Ctrl-0” but the zooming is annoying.

    Thanks,
    Craig

  32. xxx said on February 23, 2009 at 11:11 pm
    Reply

    You wouldn’t believe how many people doesn’t know about ctrl+c ctrl+v!

  33. Satanicat said on February 23, 2009 at 7:50 pm
    Reply

    I thought most people knew about this handy trick.

    It’s also applicable to a host of window based applications too. Most applications that have a chat of some kind can have the text up-sized by using ctrl + scroll wheel up.

    1. billy said on January 18, 2010 at 9:55 am
      Reply

      you sir, have made porn so much better

      1. Haruhi said on June 4, 2010 at 4:00 am
        Reply

        You sir, are a pervert.

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