# The &kmagnifier; Handbook

## Introduction

&kmagnifier; is a screen magnifier by the KDE community. It can be used to magnify a part of the screen. This application can be useful to various people: People with low vision can use this application to magnify a part of the screen which they are unable to view clearly, artists can use this application to zoom into the graphics they produce and verify it at the pixel level, image-processing researchers can use this application to zoom into images and study them closely. Other than these, &kmagnifier; can be used for various other purposes ⪚ is possible to use the application for grabbing a portion of the screen and saving it to the disk (with an option of zooming the screen captured).

&kmagnifier; is a very powerful application with new features being added all the time. It is optimized for use on low processing power machines.

## Using &kmagnifier;

Here's a screen shot of &kmagnifier; Screen shot of &kmagnifier;

After running &kmagnifier; you will get a window similar to the one show above. The main window of &kmagnifier; shows the magnified (or zoomed) contents. We refer to this window as the zoom window. The zoomed image shown inside the zoom window is captured from a part of the screen. The part of the screen which is magnified is referred to as the selection window.

By default, &kmagnifier; magnifies the region around the mouse cursor into the zoom window (think of it as a moving lens). Alternatively, you can ask &kmagnifier; to magnify an chosen area of the screen (Selection Window Mode) or the whole screen (Whole Screen Mode) into the zoom window.

If you would prefer not to see the mouse cursor in the zoomed image, select Hide Mouse Cursor. Please note that &kmagnifier; cannot yet find out the current cursor shape. Thus, it shows the default cursor.

### Changing the part of the screen to be magnified

When in Selection Window Mode, the zoom window and the selection window can be moved and resized using the &LMB; like any window. You can also change the position and size of the selection window using the arrow keys on the keyboard, or by clicking into the zoom window:

Arrow keys, &LMB; or &MMB;

- By keeping the &LMB; or &MMB; pressed in the zoom window and moving the mouse, you can move the selection window. You can also use the arrow keys if the selection window has the focus.

&Ctrl;Arrow Keys or &Ctrl;&LMB;

- By using this combination, you can resize the selection window. Keep in mind that the top-left corner of the selection window is kept constant and the bottom-right corner is movable.

### More &kmagnifier; features

&kmagnifier; comes with lots of features. It is possible to print the zoomed image directly to a printer, save the image to a file, copy the zoomed image to the clipboard (which can be used later to paste in other applications), rotate the magnification image and more.

## Menus and Shortcuts

### Menu Reference

#### The File Menu

&Ctrl; N File New Window

- Opens a new &kmagnifier; window.

&Ctrl; S File Save Snapshot As...

- Saves the zoomed view to an image file.

&Ctrl; P File Print...

- Prints the current zoomed view.

&Ctrl; Q File Quit

- Quits the application

#### The Edit Menu

&Ctrl; C Edit Copy

- Copy the current zoomed view to the clipboard which you can paste in other applications.

#### The View Menu

F5 View Start/Stop

- Start/Stop updating of the display. Stopping the update will zero the processing power required (CPU usage)

View Zoom

- Select the zoom factor.

&Ctrl; - View Zoom Out

- Click on this button to zoom-out on the selected region.

&Ctrl; + View Zoom In

- Click on this button to zoom-in on the selected region.

View Rotation

- Select the rotation degree (No Rotation (0 Degrees), Left (90 Degrees), Upside Down (180 Degrees), Right (270 Degrees).

View Refresh

- Select the refresh rate (Very Low, Low, Medium, High, Very High). The higher the rate, the more computing power (CPU) will be needed.

View Colors

- Select different color vision deficiencies to simulate color blindness. This is not useful for people with color blindness, but good for designing accessible interfaces.

#### The Settings Menu

F2 Settings Follow Mouse Mode

- In this mode the area around the mouse cursor is shown in a normal window.

F3 Settings Selection Window Mode

- In this mode a selection window is opened. The selected area is shown in a normal window.

F4 Settings Whole Screen Mode

- In this mode the whole screen is magnified in the zoom window.

F6 Settings Hide Mouse Cursor

- Show or hide the mouse cursor in the magnified image.

F7 Settings Stays On Top

- The &kmagnifier; window stays on top of other windows.

Additionally &kmagnifier; has the common &kde; Settings and Help menu items, for more information read the sections about the Settings Menu and Help Menu of the &kde; Fundamentals.

### Command Reference

&kmagnifier; automatically uses all your default shortcuts for saving file, opening new window, printing, starting/stopping refresh (reload button in &konqueror;), zoom-in, zoom-out &etc;

### Default Keyboard Shortcuts

&Ctrl;S | This will save the contents of the zoom window to a file.
F2 | Switch to "Follow Mouse Mode".
F3 | Switch to "Selection Window Mode".
F4 | Switch to "Whole Screen Mode".
F5 | This will start the refresh of the zoom window if it is stopped, or stops the refresh of the zoom window if the refresh is currently on.
F6 | Show or hide the mouse cursor in the magnified image.
F7 | The &kmagnifier; window stays on top of other windows.
&Ctrl;N | This will open a new &kmagnifier; window.
&Ctrl;P | This will open the print dialog for printing the contents of the zoom window.
&Ctrl;C | This will copy the zoom window contents to the clipboard.
&Ctrl;M | Show/Hide the menubar.
&Ctrl;- | Zoom out
&Ctrl;+ | Zoom in
&Ctrl;Q | Quits the application.

## Credits and License

&kmagnifier;

Program copyright 2001-2003 Sarang Lakare sarang@users.sf.net and 2003-2005 Olaf Schmidt ojschmidt@kde.org.

Contributors:

- Michael Forster forster@fmi.uni-passau.de (original author)

Documentation copyright 2002 Sarang Lakare sarang@users.sf.net and 2004-2005 Olaf Schmidt ojschmidt@kde.org

&underFDL; &underGPL;
&documentation.index;