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Yesterday I found myself needing to zoom my Visual Studio text editor and was without a mouse (don't ask). Typically I do this by holding down CTRL and scrolling the mouse wheel. I also couldn't figure out how to tab into the area where you can specify your zoom level in the lower left hand corner of the text editor window.

zoom in the lower left corner of the text editor window

So I guess I have two questions:

  1. Is there a menu setting somewhere that I could have navigated to via the keyboard to set my zoom level?
  2. Even better is there a similar keyboard command to holding CTRL and scrolling the mouse wheel?
ahsteele
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6 Answers6

197

I don't know if there is a menu option, but there are keyboard shortcuts to set the zoom level.

ctrl+shift+. to Zoom In

ctrl+shift+, to Zoom Out

Michael Mrozek
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Brandon
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  • Perfect this was definitely my preferred option. I try to avoid the mouse when I can. :) – ahsteele Jun 22 '10 at 19:56
  • @michael, whoops. Sorry for overwriting your edit. Thanks for the proper formatting. – Brandon Jun 22 '10 at 20:37
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    Thank you! The period/comma didn't seem to be very meaningful, until this `http://blogs.msdn.com/b/zainnab/archive/2013/09/10/zooming-in-and-out-of-text-in-the-editor.aspx` pointed out it's also >, "greater than" and "less than", which makes sense. – Pierre Nov 26 '15 at 20:34
  • These shourtcuts are not present by default in the most recent versions of Visual Studio (more precisely, for some reason they are restricted to Image Editor only). If you want to keep using them, you have to manually reassign them as global shortcuts in keyboard options. – AnT stands with Russia Aug 14 '16 at 18:40
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    @Pierre I tried the msdn blog shortcuts within Visual Studio 2017 RC but they don't work! The ones in this answer still work. – green diod Dec 03 '16 at 08:01
  • For anyone else who finds those keys impossible to read: they are comma and period (i.e. full stop) respectively. Note that shift-comma is < (less than) and shift-period is > (greater than). – Denziloe Feb 26 '19 at 22:34
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    This also works for Visual Studio 2022! – zurebe-pieter Feb 16 '22 at 15:24
  • I think it is possible to **create** a menu item, or a tool bar button. You use _Customize_, then you create commands _Zoom In_ and _Zoom Out_ (found under category _View_). – Jeppe Stig Nielsen Jun 08 '22 at 13:27
16

In my case, ReSharper reassigned Ctrl + Shift + , (aka Ctrl + Shift + < ) to ReSharper's Recent Edits command, and I wanted to reset it back to Visual Studio 2012's zoom out.

To do that, go to Tools -> Options. Under Environment -> Keyboard, remove the Ctrl + Shift + , hotkey from the ReSharper.ReSharper_GoToRecentEdits command (or any other commands), and assign the View.ZoomOut command back to Ctrl + Shift + , (use either Global or TextEditor mode).

ahsteele
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chinookf
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10

Visual Studio Code Linux keyboard shortcuts for zoom in/out:

  • in: Ctrl + =
  • out: Ctrl + -

Visual Studio Code Linux keyboard shortcuts

ahsteele
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Leonardo
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    The question is about Visual Studio, not Visual Studio Code. – PsylentKnight Jan 28 '21 at 20:58
  • this question is about Visual Studio, not Visual Studio Code. in Visual Studio, `Ctrl` + `-` is by default used for [navigating backward in cursor position history](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/ide/navigating-code?view=vs-2022). – orion elenzil Jan 07 '22 at 22:26
2

If anyone is looking for an answer to the first question (as I was), you can hit Ctrl+F2, then hit the Tab key three times. This works in VS 2019, but doesn't appear to work in 2017.

RobC
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Emilio
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1

Just an update for 2020-Sep. Ver 1.49. Win 10:

From keyboard shortcuts in-app ( Ctrl + k Ctrl + s .. or .. File Menu, Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts):

Zoom In: Ctrl + = .. or .. Ctrl + Numpad_Add .. or .. Ctrl + Shft + =

Zoom Out: Ctrl + - .. or .. Ctrl + Numpad_Subtract .. or .. Ctrl + Shft + -

Reset Zoom: Ctrl + Numpad_0

NB: for VS-Code (may/Not be same ViZStd)

EreDhan
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0

The default accessibility setting by Microsoft, if they havent been tampered or changed are:

Zoom In --> Ctrl + +

Zoom Out --> Ctrl + -

Here is the link to the official Microsoft's VS code accessibility page

Hope it helps someone else

RobC
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vivek86
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  • this question is about Visual Studio, not Visual Studio Code. in Visual Studio, `Ctrl` + `-` is by default used for [navigating backward in cursor position history](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/ide/navigating-code?view=vs-2022). – orion elenzil Jan 07 '22 at 22:23