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I'm looking for a better way to zoom in, rather than using the default accessibility zoom in option because it's really buggy. Is there a better alternative?

Edit: Just to clarify, I'm talking about the screen/system/whatever zoom in, not the browser. Also, I am on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, and my "desktop" is Ubuntu/the default.

David Foerster
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CottonTheButton
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    Ctrl-Mouse scroll wheel works for me in firefox – waltinator Jun 06 '18 at 15:20
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    Please advise which version number and desktop environment you are using. For example, 18.04 LTS uses Gnome Shell as its default desktop environment, but folks do start with one, and change to another, hence my query.

    Please revise your question to include the additional information by clicking on edit in grey, above.

     – K7AAY Jun 06 '18 at 23:44
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    icebunny08, did you ever find a good solution, I've just moved from 16.04 (unity) to 18.04 (gnome). I used to use the compiz desktop zoom which worked great and I had mapped to Super+Scroll, but I am looking for an equivalent in Gnome, any advice welcome. – Ben Sep 13 '18 at 08:10
  • The following topic is not exactly about zoom, but could be interesting for someone: Change the display scaling on the fly. – pa4080 Jul 17 '19 at 14:40

1 Answers1

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xzoom is a good screen magnifier for X, with a separate draggable window. To use, you drag it's window portion over what you want to zoom in on.

To install, run the command in terminal:

sudo apt install xzoom

To run, either type xzoom in terminal or type "xz" or "magnifier" in the power key search bar (application launcher). It doesn't come up when typing "zoom". Click and hold left click on the xzoom window and drag to what you want to magnify. Move xzoom to where you want it, and resize it as you wish.

I am using Ubuntu 19.04.

pierrely
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  • +1 xzoom is available for 16.04 and newer, according to the Ubuntu package search result. Mouse drag and key press (xzoom window command) can be used together, tested in Xubuntu 18.04. –  Jul 16 '19 at 21:52
  • this doesn't seem to work - the window seems to be a static shot of some area of the screen, although it does seem to update when the mouse is over the window itself, which is useless as it's just zooming its own contents. Second, how can you concentrate on where the mouse is if the zoomed in region is somewhere else? – Michael Nov 18 '21 at 23:26
  • I had to refresh my own knowledge on how to use it, click left mouse, hold down, move mouse across zoom area. – pierrely Nov 20 '21 at 02:14
  • seems buggy on my system, as I'm dragging the mouse a bunch of rectangles get drawn which don't get removed until I let up on the mouse – Michael Nov 21 '21 at 03:03