What to Do When the Screen Is Hard to Read in Windows

If you have trouble seeing, we’ve shown how to enlarge the font in Windows. However, you might not need a larger font all the time; perhaps you’d like a way to zoom in on the occasional hard-to-see content. Fear not, because Windows includes a tool just for this.

The Windows Magnifier can be found simply by searching for Magnifier in the Start menu. Once launched, it appears as a small window with a few options — replaced by a magnifying glass when left alone for a moment. The large plus and minus buttons zoom in and out (from 100% up to 1,600%) and the Views tab offers a few modes:

• Full Screen means the entire screen zooms in at the specified amount.
• Lens magnifies a square amount of the screen around your cursor.
• Docked adds a magnified version of whatever is under your cursor to a fixed position at the top of the screen.

Which one you want to use depends on your needs and purpose (Docked could be useful for filming a tutorial video, for example) so try them all out. By clicking the gear icon in the Magnifier, you can change the zoom percentage increments and choose how zoom tracks (it follows your mouse by default).

For the occasional picture or block of text that’s hard to see, Lens mode should prove handy. Full Screen could prove helpful if you’re sitting far away from your monitor. Everyone can use the Magnifier to their advantage differently!

Need more computer vision assistance? Check out how to make Windows more accessible for those with less than perfect sight.

When do you use the Windows Magnifier? Let us know in the comments!

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