Windows 2000 Administration in a Nutshell

Name

Magnifier

Synopsis

A cool tool for visually impaired individuals.

To Launch

• Start → Programs → Accessories → Accessibility → Magnifier

• Command interpreter → magnify.exe

Description

Magnifier displays a magnified version of a specified desktop region in a section at the top of the screen. You can drag the border of the magnified section so it covers up to half the screen, drag the section to the bottom or side of the screen, or have it float for different positioning.

When you start Magnifier, you are prompted to specify the following settings in a dialog box:

• The magnification level to use. (The default is 2X, and this is probably sufficient in most cases.)

• What portion of the desktop Magnifier should display. You can choose to track the mouse cursor, to track the keyboard focus (as in currently selected buttons and gadgets), or to follow text editing in an application such as WordPad. (By default, all three options are selected.)

• Whether the magnified section should use the default desktop colors or inverted colors (very cool). If you select High Contrast Mode, then the entire screen is placed in that mode, but you can also invert the colors so that the magnified section looks different from the rest of the desktop.

• The Start Minimized option. If you select Start Minimized, the Settings dialog box initially runs out of the way on the taskbar.

Notes

Unfortunately, you cannot use nonintegral magnification factors such as 1.5X.

See Also

Accessibility Options , Narrator, On-Screen Keyboard ...