Preview – zooming with mouse wheel

[Silvereel]

I'm new to Mac, and I was wondering if there was any way I could use my mouse wheel to zoom into a certain area of a picture? I know I can use the ~ key to magnify, and the zoom button works as well, but on Windows I can just scroll up and down with my mouse wheel while pressing control, and it'll zoom in on whatever area my cursor is focused on. Is there any way to accomplish this on Mac? It may just be because I'm used to it, but it seems more intuitive - if I use the on screen zoom button, I have to pan over to the area I want, and I may want to zoom more or less than the magnifier lets me accomplish. Basically, I would like something that behaves like pinch to zoom, but with a mouse. Is this possible?

[CrickettGrrrl]

Originally Posted by Silvereel

I'm new to Mac, and I was wondering if there was any way I could use my mouse wheel to zoom into a certain area of a picture? I know I can use the ~ key to magnify, and the zoom button works as well, but on Windows I can just scroll up and down with my mouse wheel while pressing control, and it'll zoom in on whatever area my cursor is focused on. Is there any way to accomplish this on Mac? It may just be because I'm used to it, but it seems more intuitive - if I use the on screen zoom button, I have to pan over to the area I want, and I may want to zoom more or less than the magnifier lets me accomplish. Basically, I would like something that behaves like pinch to zoom, but with a mouse. Is this possible?

Holding the Control key and scrolling on your mouse will zoom in & out. Place the mouse cursor over the area you want to zoom first, though. This works in Preview & Safari, I guess just about everywhere. Welcome to Mac

[Silvereel]

Originally Posted by CrickettGrrrl

Holding the Control key and scrolling on your mouse will zoom in & out. Place the mouse cursor over the area you want to zoom first, though. This works in Preview & Safari, I guess just about everywhere. Welcome to Mac

Alright, that sort of works. But rather than just zooming into that app, it's zooming everything in. Is that normal, or do I have something messed up in settings? Sorry if these are dumb questions, but I'm new at this On the other hand, if I use pinch to zoom on my Magic Trackpad, it just zooms in within the app I'm running.

[CrickettGrrrl]

Yes, pressing Control & scrolling zooms the entire Desktop, that's why you have to choose the particular area with the mouse cursor to zoom that area. You didn't say you were using a Magic Trackpad to pinch & zoom. If it's working, keep doing it!

[Silvereel]

Originally Posted by CrickettGrrrl

Yes, pressing Control & scrolling zooms the entire Desktop, that's why you have to choose the particular area with the mouse cursor to zoom that area. You didn't say you were using a Magic Trackpad to pinch & zoom. If it's working, keep doing it!

Yeah, I've got the Trackpad and the mouse. I'll be using the mouse for photo editing though, so I was trying to figure things out. Unfortunately, I don't think my mouse has an actual Mac driver, so that may be part of the issue. I may look at some other tools to edit its functions and maybe get it working to suit my tastes, because I paid a lot for it and I'd hate to replace it while it's still working.

[CrickettGrrrl]

I use the Magic Mouse (& love it) but I know some don't and use other brands. So I can't help re drivers in this instance. If you MRoogle your mouse model, or use site:forums.macrumors.com (your mouse brand) you might be able to find several MR threads with just that info. I'm amazed at what's to be found here sometimes...