Web Eyes: A Simple Magnifier for Sore Eyes

Today's web browsers all have techniques for enlarging the typeface on most web pages. With IE 7 and Mozilla Firefox, for example, you simply click on Ctrl + to enlarge the font and Ctrl - to decrease it. While I tried to teach my parents to use the commands, the two-fingered keystroke never came naturally. Instead, I've just installed Web Eyes, a $25 utility (for Internet Explorer only) that puts the + and - selections right into the browser's toolbar.

I'm happy to report that the situation has improved. Now all they do is hit the + or - that appears right in the toolbar's menus and they can interactively change the display font size until it's big enough to read but not so big that it becomes unwieldy.

Any of you who have used web magnification software know that it is an imperfect tool at best. It doesn't always work on every page, especially on newer, more modern web pages. Like many other web magnifiers, Web Eyes works only with content that's on an HTML page. It doesn't work with Flash, PDF files, or Java applications. And it won't enlarge things like documents or spreadsheets you create with other applications.

Since you don't know how a web page was constructed when you use a web magnifier, you can often have unexpected results. For example, using Web Eyes on CNN's site or on Yahoo! Music does nothing. On other sites, depending on the construction, you've got boxes of stuff overlapping each other and words running across and over photos. And while Web Eyes works with email programs that are web-based, getting the messages to display properly amidst popup ads and offers can be tricky. The good news is that because it's only a matter of clicking on a + or - you can quickly undo and redo things until you're comfortable reading. Web Eyes has a nice Read Like a Book mode that divides the web page into book-format sized pages for easier reading on scrolling pages, too.

Web Eyes, like many other web magnifiers, is not a perfect solution, but it's a fraction of the cost of many of its competitors and is incredibly easy to use. There's a free 15-day trial download and a nice interactive demo on the Web Eyes site.

Even if it doesn't work on every type of web page, you're still going to benefit, just don't misplace your reading glasses quite yet.

To read more:

• ZoomText, iZoom, and others
• A look at IE's web magnification versus add-on software
• IE 7's screen magnifier
• Screen readers that turn text into words