Tip #4288 - ZoomIt
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ZoomIt
Today's tip is
proof that great utilities don't have to be huge and bloated. The
ZoomIt program by Mark Russinovich (formerly of Sysinternals
and now Microsoft) is a great tool to use while giving a demo or doing
a PowerPoint presentation. With it, you can quickly zoom in and highlight
part of the screen and then zoom back out. If you think this is typical
home/office software, get rid of that thought! It's bigger than that
and it was even in use at the Microsoft Management Summit 2007. Instead
of squinting to see small text on large screens, most of the presenters
used this utility to quickly zoom in on the important information.
While a lot of commercial programs offer this functionality, this
is a lightweight alternative that basically does the same thing. Let's
check it out, shall we?!
Version
1.71
ZoomIt is a free
utility that allows you to capture an image of your computer screen
(via customizable hotkeys). Then, in real time, you can draw, type
or zoom directly in on the captured screen image. The really handy
part is that the capture process is seamless, as no external program
is opened. By pressing the Esc key (escape) on your keyboard, you
can "unfreeze" the screen and all the mark-ups you made
will disappear. This is extremely handy for doing presentations, especially
if you use a tablet PC. ZoomIt also offers a timer function where
you can assign a countdown to your computer. That would be useful
if you wanted to do a presentation with interactive user exercises.
Either way, this is an extremely handy utility that doesn’t
even need to be installed to run. Just double click it and go! ZoomIt
works on all versions of Windows and you can even use pen input for
ZoomIt when drawing on tablet PCs.
The Features
The screen magnifier
is the best I've ever seen, but it's the annotation tool that I find
to be really handy when giving presentations or even showing someone
your computer screen, one on one. The countdown timer is off-topic
and rather silly, but you're not forced to use it. ZoomIt is just
a typical Sysinternals program in that it is tiny, functional, handy,
unobtrusive and free.
If you have limited
vision, this program will simply amaze you! It has the draggable quality
of Google Maps, combined with a magnificent zoom function. It shows
a much bigger area of your screen than any other magnifier I've used.
It is also a presentation aid with a draw feature that allows the
presenter to circle or highlight part of the screen display. Then,
with a simple push of the E key, the drawings are erased again. There
is a screen break feature too, but it seems to be the opposite of
what I would use it for. For example, I want to use the PC for, say,
45 minutes and have the screen change to tell me to take a break.
This feature works more like a countdown timer in that the screen
is replaced by a large digital display that counts your time down.
Using
ZoomIt
The first time
you run ZoomIt, it presents a configuration dialogue box that describes
ZoomIt's behavior. It also allows you to specify alternate hotkeys
for zooming and for entering the drawing mode, without zooming. Plus,
it lets you customize the drawing pen color and size. I use the draw-without-zoom
option to annotate the screen at its native resolution, for example.
ZoomIt also includes a break timer feature that remains active even
when you tab away from the timer window. It then allows you to return
to the timer window by simply clicking on the ZoomIt tray icon.
This is definitely
a program you have to see to believe, so check it out today! To download
Zoomit for yourself, just visit this Web
site.
Happy zooming!
~ Zahid H. Javali
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