Zoom Text

(Video Credit: Freedom Scientific Training)

ZoomText Magnifier/Reader is an integrated program designed for low-vision users, offering magnification and reading capabilities. It enlarges and enhances everything on the computer screen. It even echoes anything you type or press, reads out loud the content from your documents and allows you to make color enhancement for better visibility. ZoomText is available for Windows users.


ZoomText has a variety of features to help students with vision impairment:

  • Powerful zoom
    8 different zoom levels allow you to choose which part of the screen is magnified.

  • Text & Picture Dictionaries
    Size and color enhancements make it easy to see the mouse pointer. Special locators make it easier to follow the mouse pointer and text cursor as they move across the screen.

  • Focus Enhancement
    Makes it easy to locate and follow the control focus when you navigate through application menus, dialogs and other application controls.

  • ZoomText Camera
    The new ZoomText Camera feature allows you to use any high-definition (HD) webcam to view and magnify printed items and other objects right on your computer screen—including bills, magazines, photographs, medicine labels, craft items and more.

  • SpeakIt Tool
    The SpeakIt tool allows you to read selected areas of the screen by clicking or dragging the mouse.

  • Complete Screen Reading.
    ZoomText automatically speaks all program controls, including menus, dialogs, list views and messages. Three verbosity levels give you complete control over the amount of information spoken.

  • NeoSpeech’ Synthesizer Voices
    ZoomText provides a library of built-in speech synthesizers, providing a variety of male and female voices to choose from. The impressive ZoomText Voices provide human-sounding voices that are closer to the real thing than ever before.

  • ZoomText Recorder
    The ZoomText Recorder allows you to turn text from documents, webpages, email, etc. into audio recordings that you can transfer to on your mobile device and listen to at your convenience.

Frequently Asked Questions

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  • ZoomText is for any user with enough vision to see a computer screen, but requires extra visual enhancements to be able to more comfortably read screen content.

  • ZoomText visually tracks as you navigate websites in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Internet Explorer. Support for Microsoft Edge is continuing to improve as well. Web pages are also read aloud if you have ZoomText Magnifier/Reader.

  • ZoomText installs and works with Windows 10, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7. Note that as Windows continues to change, new ZoomText features may not be available in older versions of Windows.

  • Yes. ZoomText’s visual features work to help you navigate in PDF documents. If you have ZoomText Magnifier/Reader, the document will also be read aloud.

  • Yes. Special attention has gone into the design of ZoomText to make sure you have full access to email, especially with Microsoft Outlook from Office 365.

  • Contact us at assistivetech@csueastbay.edu

    or visit for more information.