Tech Thursday: Zoom in, in Zoom

Some options for making a shared screen easier to see, from the participant side.

I shared previously how to access different screen share options in Zoom from the host (or screen sharer) perspective, but as the participant, you have some choices as well. I’m always frustrated when I’m in a Zoom session and having difficulty trying to read a very small font Word document or text-heavy presentation. If you’re in a meeting and the person sharing their screen doesn’t have the screen share set to an easily-viewable size for you, then you can adjust the zoom settings.

1. Go to View Options. and then Zoom Ratio.

2. In the dropdown, the default is Fit to Window. Select 100% (Original Size) to start - you can always zoom in more later, if that’s not enough.

View Options - Zoom Ratio - 100%

Once you’ve turned on a different zoom ratio, you will see a little hand icon, rather than an arrow, when you hover your mouse over the screen that’s being shared. You can click and drag to adjust where your focus is on the document being shared.

This video (below) has some more explanation of how to change the view options as a participant. I have the video set to start at the 2 min mark, where he talks about side-by-side view and using the dividing bar to resize the shared screen section, both of which are helpful tips.

Happy zooming!

Past Tech Thursdays

• Find free versions of articles

• DropBox Paper for collaboration

• Remove distracting backgrounds from photos

• “Make a copy” function in Google Drive

• Providing audio feedback

• Canvas “What-if” grades

• Working in shared Google docs

• Managing references

• Custom URLs & QR codes

• Text Expanders

• Interactive quizzing

• Screen share in Zoom

• Mailbird email program

• Using screenshots

• Voice-to-text options

• Wheel of Names (random name generator)

• Collaborating in Google Slides