Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual

Universal Access

The Universal Access panel is designed for people who type with one hand, find it difficult to use a mouse, or have trouble seeing or hearing. (These features can also be handy when the mouse is broken or missing.)

Seeing Tab (Magnifying the Screen)

If you have trouble seeing the screen, then boy, does Mac OS X have features for you (Figure 9-17).

Figure 9-17. You'll be amazed at just how much you can zoom in to the Mac's screen using this Universal Access pane. In fact, there's nothing to stop you from zooming in so far that a single pixel fills the entire monitor. (That may not be especially useful for people with limited vision, but it can be handy for graphic designers learning how to reproduce a certain icon, dot by dot.)

VoiceOver

One option is VoiceOver, which makes the Mac read out loud every bit of text that's on the screen. VoiceOver is described on Speak selected text when the key is pressed.

Zoom

Another quick solution is to reduce your monitor's resolution —thus magnifying the image—using the Displays panel described earlier in this chapter. If you have a 17-inch or larger monitor set to, say, 640 x 480, the result is a greatly magnified picture.

That method doesn't give you much flexibility, however, and it's a hassle to adjust. If you agree, then try the Zoom feature that appears here; it lets you enlarge the area surrounding your cursor in any increment.