Screen magnifier

[shivvy]

My friend has a degenerative problem with his vision and has to have the type set to a large size on his computer. However he gets very frustrated (particularly with emails) at always having to scroll left and right as well as up and down. What could he do/buy to make life easier?
I have done a search for 'computer screen magnifier' and it has come up with a few suggestions. One is a magnifier that he could put in front of his computer screen, another is software which will enlarge the print but it still looks as if he would have to scroll it across a page.
Does anyone have experience of this problem and what did they find to be the best solution?
Thanks.

[Buenchico]

Start out by seeing if the magnifier which is built into Windows will help him.

For XP see here:
http://www.microsoft..../magnifierturnon.aspx

For Vista see here:
http://www.microsoft....svista/magnifier.aspx

For 7 see here:
http://windows.micros...pear-bigger-Magnifier

Chris

[shivvy]

Thanks Chris but do those options not still mean that he will have to scroll over the various parts of the screen to see it? I was wondering if he could get something (that maybe sat in front of his screen) that magnified the whole page/email?

I really don't know if or how this is possible but I thought I would ask!

[Buenchico]

I was simply thinking that it might be best to try the free stuff first!

Just a thought in relation to scrolling:
Does your friend know that clicking on the scroll button on his mouse will activate 'scroll mode', so that he can move about the screen easily without having to drag the scroll bars?

Otherwise, the RNIB offer good-quality optical magnifiers but they're far from cheap:
http://www.rnib.org.u...=monitor_arms_screens

Chris

[shivvy]

Thanks Chris.

[scotman]

One extreme option is to get a widescreen monitor (1920x1080) and use it in portrait mode. Even with larger text this should cut down some on scrolling.

[Old_Geezer]

Changing the resolution will change the size, but if the whole page is magnified then you only get to see a bit of it on the screen don't you ? Aren't the options either to dedicate a bit of the screen as a magnified area and scroll across the rest of the normal size bit: or see just a bit of the page on screen and and have to scroll it up and across ?

Maybe the answer would be to send the signal to a large plasma TV to display.

[shivvy]

I'll forward this useful info to my friend.

Thanks everyone.

[wildwood]

First get the free program 'emailstripper' that will remove all the formatting from the text.

Copy the text into the Emailstripper and strip, then copy to a new Word document in (so that the lines are not too wide). simply scroll with the Ctrl key held down to enlarge the text. If the text is still too small at full screen, set Word default page size to A5.

I've just tried and the whole exercise took me 22 seconds, this includes opening Word and Emailstripper.