Quick Tip: Zoom Your MacBook Air Screen

Disclaimer: My apologies to K-5 teachers currently without Mac laptops, this tip is aimed at 6-8 teachers. I promise to include future tips that are more inclusive (and maybe some just for K-5).

When I am presenting with my MacBook Air plugged into an LCD projector, especially during professional development, I sometimes need to zoom in to a particular part of my screen to allow the audience to easily see a detail. This is an easy task, but it requires a quick setting change. Here’s how to do it:

1. Launch System Preferences (in the Dock or under the Apple menu).
2. Click Accessibility.
3. Click Zoom in the left column.
4. Click the checkbox Use scroll gesture with modifier keys to zoom: (there is no need to change the modifier key from Control).
5. Close System Preferences by clicking the red dot in the upper-left corner.

From now on you may press and hold the control key on the keyboard while using a 2-finger scroll up and down on the trackpad to zoom in and out of the screen. 2-finger scroll up zooms in and 2-finger scroll down zooms out. The zoom feature will zoom to wherever your arrow is pointing on the screen. You can move your arrow to the edges of the screen while zoomed to view different areas of the zoomed screen.

Change these settings then use the control key on the keyboard,
along with a 2-finger scroll up and down to zoom in and out.