Category: How tos (Page 2 of 11)

Sometimes it is necessary to be able to zoom in on electronic documents for easier viewing.  This is especially helpful for those who are visually impaired.  Like in most PDF viewers Outlook 2007 also has a zoom feature for reading and composing your emails.

Open Outlook and start a new mail message.  Make sure the cursor is in the body of the email so you can access the Format Text tab.  From there click on the Zoom button.

This opens the Zoom dialog box where you can choose the percent of increase the size of the text.

As you can see above there is a preview window, but the best way to judge the size is to use it in an actual message.

The easiest way I have found to zoom in on email while your reading them is to add the zoom icon to the Quick Access Toolbar and follow the steps above.

The other day my boss showed off a new Outlook trick that he learned: You can increase or decrease the text size in Outlook on the fly using the same technique that works in your browser. Since everybody else seemed interested, I figured this qualifies as a stupid geek trick that I’ll share with you today.

If you are unfamiliar with how the browser trick works: you can use Ctrl and the mouse wheel in your browser to quickly zoom in, which increases the size of the text and images on the screen. This same technique works in the Outlook email view.

Using the Quick Zoom

Just hold down the Ctrl key while scrolling your mouse wheel over top of the preview pane… and the text will magically increase in size!

This also works for messages in a new message window, although you might note that HTML emails don’t scale quite as nicely, like this one in the before picture:

And in the after picture, you’ll notice that you’d have to scroll quite a bit to actually read it…

But, this can be very useful if you maximize an HTML email message… here’s a thumbnail screenshot which poorly shows how that might work:

I find that this technique works out well for reading the tiny fonts in some emails, but it’s mostly just a fun trick to show off to your friends or co-workers.

Note: Using the Ctrl and + or – keys works in the browser, but doesn’t work in Outlook, sadly.

Sometimes a thumbnail image can give you a good idea if the photo is worth a closer inspection or not. But what about the times when the thumbnail is just not enough? If the idea of a quick peak zoom feature for your browser sounds good then join us as we look at the zoomZOOM extension.

Options

The first thing that you should do once you have the extension installed is to go into the “Options”. Make certain to enable the extension for any websites that you frequently use. If desired you may also change the “popup location/position”. While there are only six websites available at the moment it is our guess that more will be added with further development (based on the Change Log).

zoomZOOM in Action

We decided to try three of the six currently available websites for our article. We started at “Photobucket” with a search for “cats”…thumbnails can be good but larger images are better.

Note: For some odd reason the “Address Bar Icon” did not display in our test browser.

Next we moved on to “Flickr”.

Our third and final example was “Google Image Search”. Once again everything was nicely enlarged and with the second image the full size (1024 x 768) version became available for viewing.

Conclusion

The zoomZOOM extension may only do one thing but it does it very well…letting you view nicely enlarged versions of the images at your favorite photo websites.

Every week we crack open the tips box and share some of the best reader tips. This week we’re looking at android browser zooming, caffeine power naps, and customizing the boot screens on Android devices.

Double Tap to Zoom in the Android Browser

Mike writes in with his fresh Android find:

This might be old news for Android veterans but I just discovered this trick: When browsing on the Android web browser you can double tap to immediately zoom in to 100% view on the spot you double tapped. It’s super handy for a quick swoop in on a webpage that has rendered too small on the mobile screen. Double tap again and it zooms right back out to the original (full screen) size.

You’re right Mike, while the tip may be old for Android veterans I think it’s safe to say that every Android user had their “Ah hah!” moment when they discovered this little gem of a maneuver. You’re paying it forward by sharing.

Espresso Naps for Maximum Alertness

Alex writes in with his tip for staying alert with a busy schedule:

OK guys, this isn’t exactly a software hack (more of a wet-ware hack really) but it’s really been helping me out lately so I figured I’d write in. Everybody knows that a little power nap can really help you get through the day but have you tried a caffeine-fueled power nap? It sounded crazy but a guy I work with (who also has a wild schedule like me) swore by it so I tried it. Here’s how it works. You slug back a cup or coffee or a shot of espresso and then immediately take a 20 minute power nap. When you wake up you feel crazy refreshed. At first I was sure I was just imagining the effect but when I Googled it I found research that supports “caffeine napping”.

Wetware tips are just as useful as software tips sometimes, Alex. We too have used the caffeine power nap trick before with positive results. There’s nothing like the double whammy of getting a boost from a power nap and a shot of caffeine to help perk you up.

How to Change Your Android Splash Screen

Elyse writes in with a technique for swapping the splash screen on your Android phone:

I like customizing my Android phone and as much as I liked the Cyanogen splash screen that appeared after I rooted/upgraded my phone I wanted to tweak it. I found this video and guide and followed along and now I’ve got a custom splash screen. This was my first foray into doing any deep customization and it went really smoothly!

Customizing the splash screen is fun; one of our first splash screen customizations was years and years ago on a Windows Mobile phone. We wanted to get rid of the annoying Sprint TV ad/logo that splashed every time the phone rebooted (which, in the early Windows mobiles days was a frequent occurrence). Thanks for writing in Elyse!

If you’ve recently picked up a selfie stick to use with your Android device you may have run into a significant problem: the trigger button doesn’t actually take a photo (but instead zooms the camera in). Read on as we help straighten things out and get you back to taking photos with an extended reach.

Editor’s Note: We’re sorry. Yes, we wrote an article about how to use the Wand of Narcissus selfie sticks. Please feel free to rip on us in the comments.

Dear How-To Geek,

This problem isn’t exactly mission critical (and feel free to tease me about it) but I recently bought a selfie stick and the thing just doesn’t work. Here’s the situation: I bought a generic selfie stick that looks like just about every other selfie stick out there (telescoping pole, button on the handle, little phone jack cable on the end that you plug into the phone’s headphone jack to control the camera) only when I hook it up to my Android phone it doesn’t actually take pictures it just zooms the camera in from 1.0x to 4.0x.

If I swap out my phone for my wife’s iPhone though it works just fine. What the heck? What’s the deal? How can I get my selfie stick to work with my Android phone?

Sincerely,

Selfie Stick Stumped

Because manufacturers big and small are cranking out selfie sticks in record numbers to meet the surge in popularity it’s not particularly surprising that the documentation that comes with them is lacking or nonexistent; don’t be surprised if you buy one and it doesn’t come with any instructions at all.

Your selfie stick isn’t broken and your cellphone isn’t misbehaving. Both of them, in fact, are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing. Let’s break down what’s happening and how you can fix it so both your phone and your wife’s can live in selfie-stick harmony.

How Selfie Sticks Communicate with Your Phone

First, selfie sticks come in two varieties (as far as interfacing with the cellphone camera goes). There’s the Bluetooth variety wherein you actually pair the selfie stick with your device like you would a Bluetooth headset. The button on the stick sends a wireless signal to the device and snaps your picture.

More advanced Bluetooth selfie sticks like this Kootek model even include multiple buttons for zooming, triggering the camera, and other functions (if your device supports such advanced tricks, that is). Even then, however, you can run into the same problem if the Bluetooth device is designed to function the same way as the wired version we’re about to look at.

The other method of interface is the headphone jack, which is the kind you have. Why the headphone jack to control the camera? Both iOS (since iOS 5.0) and Android (since Android 4.3) have had a stock camera function wherein the up-volume button serves as a physical shutter button on the camera.

When you hold the phone in landscape mode the volume button ends up on the top right corner of the device and it’s a pretty close approximation of the camera button on a slender point and shoot camera.

As such, it was only natural for selfie stick makers to capitalize on this whole volume-up-as-shutter mechanic to make a simple, reliable, and low-power trigger for their selfie sticks by simply running a headphone cable through the stick so each button press on the stick handle communicated a volume-up signal through the wire to the phone (the same way the little control modules on some headphone cables allow you to adjust the volume without fishing around in your pocket or bag to use the physical buttons on the device).

So where does it all fall apart? It falls apart when cell providers muck around with the versions of Android they deploy and break the functionality. A stock Samsung Galaxy S-variant (like the S3, S4, etc.) should have the feature in the camera settings to toggle the volume key as a camera trigger but many of the providers ship custom updates where this feature (and lots of other features that should be stock with the next Android update) are missing or changed. Sprint’s Samsung Galaxy S3 units, despite updating to 4.3, are missing this function.

If you’re stuck in such a situation where the stock camera isn’t really stock (or if you have a pre Android 4.3 phone) how do you fix it? Rather than go to extensive lengths to flash new firmware, dig deeply in the guts of Android, or any such maneuver, the easiest way to get your selfie stick working the way it should is to simply install a new camera application that features a setting to specifically enable the volume-up to serve as a trigger.

How to Get Your Selfie Stick and Android Phone Talking

Before you go downloading a new application, take a moment to look in the settings of your device first and double check that you need a new app. It’s possible that you simply need to toggle on a setting and you’ll be ready to use your selfie stick. Open up the camera application, tap on the gear/settings icon and look through the settings menu for anything that references a trigger or volume key. If your Android phone has the setting in question it should be found under setting like “Volume Key – Take Pictures” or “Volume Keys” where you can tap and select an option (such as trigger, zoom, or flash).

If you can’t find any such setting and are confident that the option is outright missing, don’t worry, there are a plenty of camera apps in the Play Store that include a volume-as-trigger function. Fortunately for you the feature-rich, free, and very popular (400 million+ downloads) camera app Camera360 Ultimate has a setting specifically to recapture the volume button as a trigger.

By default Camera360 Ultimate enables the volume-as-trigger function but if you need to adjust it (or the default changes at some point in the future) you can find it easily by launching the application, tapping on the settings icon (the little gear in the lower right corner) then click on “Advanced Settings.”

From there you can access the Camera options; click on “More” and then select “Volume key function.” Capture360 Ultimate supports returning the function of the volume key to actual volume adjustment, zooming, and most important for our purpose (and to get your selfie stick working) capturing a picture.

That’s all there is to it. Whether you’re using an old version of Android without the volume-as-shutter function baked in or a new version where manufacturer-meddling has turned the function off, all you need is a new camera app with the volume key function included and you’re in business.

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Have a pressing tech question big or small? Shoot us an email at ask@howtogeek.com and we’ll do our best to answer it.

Your camera may boast “8x zoom”, but most DSLRs do not advertise values like these. So how do they compare? The answer is more complex than you may think.

That “8x” value that doesn’t necessarily mean objects in the photo will look 8 times bigger than they do with your eyes. It just means things will be 8 times bigger than its most zoomed-out position—but two cameras in their most zoomed-out positions will not look the same size.

Every lens affects your image in a different way. A wide angle lens warps the perspective in the image so it shows more than you could see with your naked eye. A telephoto lens does the opposite, zooming in like a telescope to distant objects. These things are separate from the actual “zoom” function on your camera, so one 8x zoom lens may not make objects as large as another 8x zoom lens.

So how do we calculate how much bigger an object appears in a photo compared to your eyes, where you’re currently standing? To find that out, you need to know the focal length and field of view of the lens you’re using.

Focal Length and Field of View

In photography, the focal length of a lens is the distance between a the camera’s sensor and the internal components of the lens itself. This focal length determines how close objects look to your camera and what part of the scene actually fits within the picture—otherwise known as your field of view. A massive, telescope-like lens with a 1000mm focal length will make objects look very close. Lenses with smaller focal lengths will make objects appear farther away.

Many lenses can “zoom” to different focal lengths. For example, an 18-135mm lens will let you zoom from an 18mm focal length to a 135mm focal length.

Here’s an example. I shot the following two images with my Canon 650D and an 18-135mm lens.

The first photo was taken at the shortest focal length: 18mm. It’s a pretty wide field of view.

The next photo was taken in the exact same place half a second later. The only difference is that I’ve zoomed in to use the lens’ longest focal length, 135mm.

As you can see, the field of view is a lot narrower in the second photo than the first, because we’ve zoomed in on the mountains.

Here’s the catch, though. Different lenses, at their shortest focal length, will show things differently. Remember that 1000mm telescope lens? Even if you don’t zoom in with it, you’re still seeing things much closer than a camera with an 18-135mm lens. So focal length alone isn’t enough to say “this lens shows objects X times larger than they appear to human eyes”.

For that, we need to know what focal length compares to the human eye.

The “Normal” Focal Length

Comparing cameras to eyes is a difficult task. They both capture images, but do it in very very different ways. This means that it’s impossible to say that human eyes are the equivalent of a 35mm lens with an aperture of f/5.6, for example; the concepts just aren’t interchangeable. Instead, we’ve got to compare properties in other ways: like using the field of view.

A “normal” lens, then, is a lens that approximates the field of view of the human eye. Oskar Barnack, who created the Leica camera, arbitrarily set it to 50mm for a full frame camera, although any focal length between about 40mm and 58mm will appear roughly normal. On a crop sensor camera, the normal focal length is somewhere between 28mm and 36mm.

Calculating the Relative Field of View

Okay, we’re finally ready to answer that original question: compared to how we normally see things, how much more or less of the scene will a photo show? To do this, we’re going to calculate the relative fields of view for lenses with different focal lengths.

The formula is quite simple: just divide 50 by the focal length you’re using for the photo (because a normal lens is 50mm, as we discussed above). If you’re using a crop sensor camera, divide the equivalent focal length on a full frame camera.

Let’s look at an example. A 28mm lens has almost 1.786 times the field of view of a normal lens (50/28 = 1.786). For simplicity’s sake, we’ll say it’s “almost twice the field of view”. That means that an object in a photo taken with an 28mm lens will look about half the size of something in a similar photo taken with a normal lens—or, half the size of what you’re eyes see standing in the same spot.

A 200mm lens has one quarter the field of view of a normal 50mm lens (50/200 = 1/4). So an object in a photo taken with a 200mm lens will look about four times bigger than what your eyes see.

In the image above, you can see that comparison in action. The first photo was taken with my 18-135 at 18mm (equivalent to 28mm on a full frame camera), the second was taken at 35mm (equivalent to a normal-ish 56mm on a full frame camera) and the final shot was taken at 135mm (equivalent to 216mm on a full frame camera). The sunglasses in the first photo are about half the size of the ones in the second, and the ones in the second are about a quarter the size of the ones in the third. Here’s a close up of them side-by-side.

Remember, Focal Length Is Different Than Zoom

Remember when we said “one 8x zoom lens may not make objects as large as another 8x zoom lens”? Now you understand why.

Say you buy a compact camera with a whopping 35x zoom. That sounds better than your DSLR lens with an 8x zoom, but this doesn’t mean that things look 35 times bigger than they do with your eyes. Instead, it means the ratio between the shortest and the longest focal length of that lens is 1:35. Depending on the focal length of each camera, the DSLR may make objects appear much larger, even though it has a smaller zoom. Zoom values are not necessarily comparable from camera to camera.

So don’t be tempted by a camera just because it has a higher zoom level—that doesn’t tell the whole story. And remember: compact cameras are good, but they’re still no match for a DSLR when it comes to image quality, sensor size, low light performance, autofocus, and dozens of other non-zoom features.

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Focal lengths and their relative field of views can be tricky concepts to grasp. Most lenses don’t make things appear that much bigger than normal, instead the advantages of DSLRs lay elsewhere. If you want to get really close to something miles away, a super zoom compact camera will do better, but a DSLR will take much better images of everything else.

While most of what you see on the web is sized correctly, you might come across the occasional site you want to view bigger. You also might be faced with aging eyes and need a size boost for everything. Whatever your situation is, it’s easy to make content bigger on your Chromebook!

How To Zoom In and Out on One Page

If there’s just one page you want bigger, you can zoom in by placing two fingers together on the trackpad, then moving those fingers apart. You can also press the Ctrl and + (plus) keys at the same time to zoom in

Zoom back out by placing two fingers separated on the trackpad, then bringing them together. You can also press the Ctrl and – (minus) keys at the same time to zoom out.

To reset a page to its default size, press Ctrl+0.

How To Make Almost Everything Bigger

You can also make the default size bigger for every website you visit. Clicking the time in the lower-right corner of your Chromebook and then select the “Settings” icon.

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On the Settings page, scroll down to the Appearance section and then click the “Page Zoom” drop-down. Select a percentage larger than 100% to make everything bigger.

This will make every website, the Settings menu, and Android apps zoomed in by default. Unfortunately, this change does not affect Linux and Chrome Web Store apps. As an example, here’s the How-To Geek homepage with the zoom set to 100%: 

And here it is with the zoom at 150%:

If you need to change this back to the default size, head back to the Appearance section in Settings and set page zoom to 100%.

Once you change this setting on one Chromebook, it will remain the same if you ever sign into another Chromebook or Chromebox. Now, you won’t have to strain your eyes to read your favorite websites!

Zoom, a popular video-conferencing application, is in hot water today. The Mac version runs a secret web server in the background—even after you uninstall it!—that can be used to reinstall Zoom and even turn on your video camera.

If you’re wondering whether you’re affected—maybe you’re not sure if someone has ever installed Zoom on your Mac and then uninstalled it—here’s how to check.

To see whether you have the main Zoom app currently installed, open the Finder app, select Applications, and look for “zoom.us” in the list. If you have this app installed, you almost certainly have the web server running.

But, even if you don’t have the app here, the web server will still be running in the background if you’ve ever installed and then uninstalled Zoom.

To check whether the server is running, open a Terminal window. To do so, press Command+Space to open Spotlight search, type “Terminal,” and press Enter. You can also head to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal.

To discover whether the web server is running, type the following command and press Enter:

lsof -i :19421

If you see a “ZoomOpene” process running, the web server is running in the background. If you don’t, it’s not.

If you do see Zoom’s web server running and you want to remove Zoom completely from your system, run the following commands.

These assume that you’ve uninstalled the Zoom app from your Applications folder first. If you haven’t, a Zoom update will likely re-enable the web server.

pkill ZoomOpener

rm -rf ~/.zoomus

if you’d like to keep Zoom installed, Lifehacker‘s quick guide points out you should enable the “Turn off my video when joining a meeting” option for safety. Jonathan Leitschuh’s original disclosure provides more information about the problem.

Browser-based video conferencing apps may be a better solution in the future—if you’re just using an application in a browser with no software installation, it can’t do shady things like this to your Mac or PC.

Zoom’s video conferencing software has more problems than a secret web server on Mac. Even on Windows, websites you visit could start filming you without your consent. All you have to do is click a link. This problem affects Macs, too.

While previous reporting seemed to indicate that Zoom’s problems were specific to macOS, Windows is vulnerable, too. If Zoom is configured to turn on your camera by default in meetings, someone could embed a Zoom link in a web page and immediately start recording you. This would work on either Windows or Mac.

Zoom insists it “have no indication that this has ever happened”—yet. The company considers this a feature and says you’ve given permission for this if your Zoom client is configured to automatically turn on your webcam when you join a meeting.

Jonathan Leitschuh‘s proof of concept website demonstrates this. If you have Zoom software installed and go to the website, the Zoom software will launch and automatically join the meeting and start recording with your webcam. In the case of the macOS, you’d see that behavior even if you previously uninstalled Zoom, thanks to a secret web server Zoom leaves running after it’s uninstalled. But, even on Windows, Zoom will launch if you currently have it installed.

At first, Jonathan Leitschuh’s medium post seemed to suggest this issue only existed on MacOS. But he clarified otherwise in a tweet:

We tested this by installing Zoom software and visiting his proof of concept website using Google Chrome.

On the first visit, you’ll be prompted to open the Zoom app—assuming you don’t have Zoom installed. If you check “Always open these types of links in the associated app,” you’re in trouble. That’s a box nearly anyone would check to skip extra clicking in the future.

The next time we visited the website, Zoom automatically opened, joined us to the meeting, and started our webcam. We didn’t click any prompts or give any approval. Without interaction on your part, malicious sites could easily record you as long as you have Zoom installed.

You do see the Zoom window and it’s clear you’re being recorded. However, a malicious website could capture some video of you before you stopped the video conference.

This is a huge issue. We recommend uninstalling Zoom if you don’t use it frequently. If you need it installed, you can also toggle the “Turn my video off when joining meeting” option on the “Video” tab in Zoom’s settings window to prevent this from happening.

On macOS, don’t forget to check for the web server and uninstall it too.

Unfortunately, Zoom’s official response to the situation seems to suggest the company considers this a feature and not a problem. Hopefully, it understands the full severity of the issue soon and changes course.

Microsoft PowerPoint lets you zoom in and out on a specific part of your PowerPoint slideshow, which can be handy both while editing and for drawing attention to important objects or ideas during the presentation. Here’s how to do it.

Whether you’re in normal view or slideshow view, PowerPoint lets you zoom in and out as the need arises. There are a few ways you can do this, depending on which view you’re in.

The first method is by using the zoom bar at the bottom-right of the window (which isn’t available in the slideshow view). This method is convenient as the zoom bar is immediately accessible. To use the zoom bar,  click and drag the bar left or right to zoom out or in, respectively. You can also resize the slide to fit your current window by clicking the box to the right of the zoom bar.

Another method is using the “Zoom” tool, found on the “View” tab.

In the “Zoom” window, you can select a zoom percentage from the list of available options or enter a precise percentage into the “Percent” box. Once ready, click “OK,” and your slide will zoom to the selected amount.

Those two methods are great for when you’re editing and need to take a closer look at something. But if you’re in the middle of giving your presentation and want to zoom in on a specific part for emphasis, you can do that too.

Select the magnifying glass from the presenter view and then click the part of the slide you want to zoom. Once zoomed in, you can click and drag to move the slide around. When you’re finished, click the magnifying glass again to zoom back out.

One last tip: In both normal and slideshow view, you can hold the Ctrl key while scrolling your mouse wheel to zoom in and out. This also works if you want to resize your slide thumbnails.

That’s all there is to it!

If you need to see a part of your Word document up close, or if you need to see more of the page than what you get at a standard size, you can zoom in or out. Here’s how.

Zoom In and Out of a Word Doc Using the Zoom Bar

The need to zoom in and out of a Word document is quite common. It’s so common that Microsoft put a zoom bar on the right side of the status bar at the bottom of the window for quick access.

To use the zoom bar, click and drag the slider to the left or right to zoom out or in, respectively. As you do so, you’ll notice the page percentage decrease or increase.

Alternatively, you can click the minus (-) or plus (+) sign to zoom out or in at 10 percent increments.

If you zoom in to the point that parts of the Word document aren’t visible anymore, horizontally speaking, then a horizontal scroll bar will appear at the bottom of the page.

Zoom In and Out of a Word Doc Using the Zoom Dialog Box

If you want a little more control over the zoom feature, the “Zoom” dialog box gives you a few more options. To access this, select the “View” tab and then click the “Zoom” button in the “Zoom” group.

The “Zoom” dialog box will appear. In the “Zoom To” group, you’ll see several pre-defined options. The options to the right zoom in and out to a specific percentage to fill its given purpose while those on the left are set defaults. These percentages will differ depending on your device’s screen size and the size of your Word window (full-screen, half-screen, etc.).

If none of the pre-defined options are what you’re looking for, you can click the up and down arrows next to the “Percent” option to zoom in and out by 1 percent increments (compared to the 10 percent increments from the zoom bar).

When you’re finished, select “OK” and the changes will take place.

A Few Handy Word Shortcuts

There are also a few shortcuts for zooming in and out, depending on your device. If you’re using a touch screen (or touchpad), you can take advantage of the pinch-to-zoom functionality. This feature allows you to zoom in and out by placing two fingers on the screen and “pinching” to zoom out or separating your fingers to zoom in.

Lastly, for those using a mouse with a scroll wheel, you can hold the “Ctrl” button and scroll the wheel up or down to zoom in and out, respectively.