By Gary M. Kaye with Bonnie Kearney, Director of Accessibility and Aging Marketing at Microsoft

Microsoft is making a huge bet that its new Windows 8 operating system will reinvigorate the company with a dramatic new look. This is the biggest mak

eover of Windows in more than twenty years. The new colorful array of tiles instead of icons is optimized for touch machines. Touch makes interacting with many of the functions on the computer much easier. You can pinch text to make it larger. You can swipe your way through pages or material or photographs. But the new Windows 8 is so different from earlier versions that it requires traveling up a steep learning curve. But it does have some specific features designed to make things easier for us.

Bonnie Kearney, Director of Accessibility and Aging Marketing at Microsoft told us about the new Windows Magnifier in a post which originally appeared in “In The Boombox”:

“The new Windows 8 operating system looks very different from anything you’ve ever seen before. It is beautiful, fast, and fluid, bringing together your websites, people, apps, and more, so everything you care about is right on your Start screen.”

Despite how much I enjoy the new look and feel of Windows 8, and the slick touch enabled environment, my favorite enhancement is in the magnification feature, called Magnifier. Magnifier is a feature that enlarges your screen, or portions of your screen, making words and images easier to see. It’s especially helpful for users with low vision who have trouble seeing their devices. Whether I need to give my eyes a break near the end of a day’s work, or want to zoom in on some fabric I’m looking at online for a weekend project, Magnifier is my favorite Windows 8 feature, just waiting for me whenever I need it.

Magnifier lens view in Windows 8.

In Windows 8, if you use a touch-enabled device, you can control Magnifier from the edges of your screen. To start Magnifier on a touch-enabled device you will need to first designate Magnifier as the start option when pressing the Windows logo key + Volume up in the Ease of Access settings.

Ease of Access settings screen where you can select which accessibility tool to open with the keyboard shortcut Windows logo key + Volume Up.

Once magnifier has been started, a border will appear around the edges of the magnified screen. You can use these borders to move around the entire screen and it will work with all of your Windows 8 and desktop applications. You can simply drag your finger along a border to move Magnifier in that direction. When the border disappears, you are at the edge of the screen. By pressing the plus (+) and minus (-) buttons in the corners of the screen you can zoom in or out to a size that best suits your preference. You can also quickly change the zoom level by moving two fingers closer together or farther apart on one of the borders. To help keep track of your location on the screen, Magnifier has a preview feature that shows you exactly where you are in the context of the entire screen. To see the preview, tap with a thumb or finger on opposite borders at the same time. The currently magnified window will zoom out and highlight the part of the screen you are viewing, and, after a few seconds it will zoom back to the currently highlighted location. When viewing the preview you can also drag the highlighted region to quickly move Magnifier around the screen.

This tool is seamlessly integrated into my PC environment, and makes the entire experience more comfortable for me whenever I need it. Try it out yourself. It might just become your favorite Windows 8 feature too.

You can find out more about how to make your computer safer and easier to use at Microsoft.com/enable.