OS X Is Stuck in Zoom
Mac OS X includes special adaptive features designed to make computers and computing tasks more accessible to people with disabilities and special needs. Among its Universal Access features, screen Zoom brings the information on your screen closer so you can inspect a magnified view. This feature offers valuable assistance for people with limited vision. If your Mac keeps zooming in on screen areas, you may wish to turn Zoom off or avoid activating it.
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Universal Access
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Mac OS X offers visual, auditory and input assistance. You can use VoiceOver to read onscreen prompts and details aloud, turn your monitor into a white-on-black or black-on-white display, make your screen flash whenever your system plays an alert sound, turn key combinations into key sequences and slow down keyboard input, replace mouse input with keyboard use, and enlarge your cursor for easier visibility. Additionally, Zoom lets you enlarge screen details in progressive steps to make small details visible and text easier to read.
Zoom
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If your Mac is stuck in Zoom mode, then you've activated this mode in your System Preferences, which you reach through the Apple Menu. In Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, Universal Access appears in the Personal row of System Preferences. Its dialog box contains four tabs: Seeing, Hearing, Keyboard and Mouse. Zoom and its preferences appear in the Seeing tab. Zoom options include the magnification range, as well as how the screen image interacts with the mouse pointer, scroll wheel and keyboard.
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Turning Zoom Off
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If you don't want to use it, either temporarily or permanently, Zoom includes two options for deactivating its screen magnification. You can open System Preferences, bring up the Universal Access settings and turn Zoom off using its "Off" radio button. Alternatively, you can turn Zoom off or on from your keyboard by pressing "Option + Command + 8." If you use the keyboard to turn Zoom off, your screen view returns to its normal magnification at the same time.
Other Zooms
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Deactivating Zoom doesn't affect the multi-touch Smart Zoom gesture that you execute on a Macintosh laptop, or a Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad plugged into a desktop Mac. This gesture uses a double-tap with two fingers -- one finger on a Magic Mouse -- to zoom in, and a repeat of the gesture to zoom back out. Likewise, you can pinch in or out with your thumb and index finger to execute a zoom on a notebook or Magic Trackpad. These multi-touch gestures come from the iOS used on Apple mobile devices and operate independently from Universal Access.
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