Window Zoom Shortcut for Mac Word 2011

One annoying feature in Word 2011 for Mac is the zoom slider in the bottom right window corner. As you slide it right and left, it zooms in and out in 1% increments. Some of the “in between” zoom levels make the text spacing difficult to read. I wish Word would snap to preset larger intervals as you slide left and right.

Solution: Hold the Control key down while either rotating the scroll wheel on your mouse or doing a two-finger swipe on your trackpad. The window magnification will zoom in and out in 10% increments.

Note: This keyboard shortcut works the same way in Excel and PowerPoint.

10 Comments

Denis Hamilton on April 20, 2011 at 12:43 am

Hi there! Thanks for your article! Just a question though – I’ve somehow managed to turn off my zoom slider in Mac, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to turn it back on again! Any tips there?
Cheers,
Denis.

Mike Beato on April 20, 2011 at 7:38 am

If you’re viewing the document in “Notebook Layout View” the zoom slider is not available. Is that the case?
Reply

Dave on June 24, 2011 at 5:49 am

hey,

little maybe pretty heplful comment by me 😀

i need to use the ctrl+cmd key simultaneously to get this effect!
by holding the ctrl key only, the mac itself zooms into the whole screen, not only within MSword2011, which is also pretty annoying…

cheers,
david

Mike Beato on June 24, 2011 at 10:58 am

David, Yes, that can be annoying! You might want to try what I did: Turn off or change the “Zoom using scroll wheel while holding…” in the Mouse system preference pane.
Reply
Neal on October 15, 2013 at 1:34 pm

Yes, this is perfect! Please add this to the main article – I still enjoy using the OS zoom sometimes so I don’t want to disable it.
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reg deangelo on March 28, 2019 at 11:47 pm

thanks Dave. ctrl + cmd is the answer. you just saved my sanity.
Reply