Mouse scroll plus Control will not ZOOM with Lion OSX 10.7

I had this problem - and worse. From reading other reports and what I experienced, it would work until your computer went to sleep - maybe had to be asleep for awhile - and when you woke it up, the zoom wouldn't work until you rebooted. But I learned that if you move the cursor to a corner which is set to start the screen saver, you can do that and when you come back out of the screen saver, the zoom works again! Not ideal, but sure beats restarting!

But I have an even weirder problem I can't figure out. At some point, when trying to get this figured out, I ended up with a situation where if I set zoom to "on", the screen instantly zooms in and I can't seem to control it. If I click it to "off", the screen returns to normal, but I can use my mouse wheel and control key to still zoom. Why the heck would that happen when the zoom option is turned off???

works fine here with a magic trackpad and magic mouse, but I use MagicPrefs (free) on all my machines and I think it heals things in this regard, by default. The thing I don't like about this zoom is that it zooms both displays if you have external attached, which is a bit distracting. Good luck!

I've had the very same problem and have been on the phone with Apple Support for the last several days. My problem/case has apparently been forwarded to the "engineering department," and I am supposed to get a call-back when it's been analyzed. I'll share what I learn, if I do.

Thanks, dbk999. I do have a "hot corner" set for my screen saver and will try your trick as opposed to restarting which is annoying but, right now, the only way I can seem to bring back the Control/Magic Mouse Scroll zoom feature.

Looking forward to your response from the Apple support team because I'm having the same problems too.

Same here. Only starts working again after a restart. Fooling around in universal access or using hot corners does nothing.

I have this problem as well using 10.7.1. I've gotten it to work again without a reboot, however, by doing the following. In the Universal Access Pane within in the Zoom section, select the Zoom in window option. Using the control-forward scroll method with a magic mouse or other wheel mouse, zoom in the window a little. Then, inside the Zoom window, deselect the Zoom in window option. On my machine, this results in the whole screen zooming in again and subsequently zoom will work for a time. Zoom stops working again randomly and I have to repeat the above steps to get it working again. Its a pain, but it saves a reboot.

BTW I'm running on a 2.8 ghz i5 iMac (late 2010) with 10.7.1

I have had this problem as well and I'm running 10.7.1. If you go into Universal Access in System Preferences then go to the Zoom feature. Click on Options. At the bottom the feature "use scroll wheel with modifer key to zoom". The default is the control button.

I'm glad I have it back!

Thank you Mr. Gilmore, I now have zoom back. My old eyes thank you so much!

Same thing happens to me on my unibody MacBook running 10.7.1 - control+scroll to zoom works for a while then, for some reason, stops working. I have never figured out what causes it to stop working, but I'll try some of the suggestions regarding sleep or screensaver kicking in.

Anyway, I have found I can get it back by going to System Preferences -> Universal Access and then toggling "Zoom in window" on, then off again.

Same problem here. toggling the zoom in window on and off again and then restarting my computer fixes it, but only for an unspecified time. I have no idea what causes it to cease working, I just go to zoom and it suddenly doesn't work again. It's a real pain and a real time waster getting it to work again.

By the way, I'm using a mighty mouse on an Imac.

THE ANSWER FOR THE PROBLEM IS:

1) System Preferences

2) Universal Access

3) In the Zoom area click on Options...

4) At the bottom of the screen you'll see the option that says: "Use scroll wheel with modifier keys to zoom"

5) Erase what's on the text box and put the key that you want.

Here's the answer (10.8) and then some:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HI_TJYJus8kJ:osxdaily.com/t ag/mac-os-x-10-8/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca&client=firefox-a

Thanks Mr. Gilmore.. Now I am able to Zoom using mouse scroll

Some of you might not be satisfied by the OSX zoom behavior, but rather would like Ctrl+"mousewheel up/down" to increase/decrease content size per app. Like in Windows.

To be clear let's differ between the two features: OSX's whole screen (OS UI aswell) zoom and increase/decrease content size.

Solution:

This is the solution I came up with, which allows you to use Ctrl+"mousewheel up/down" to trigger the latter feature, the content zoom.

1) Make sure you aren't using Ctrl as a zoom key modifier in Settings -> Accessibility -> Zoom (I use Cmd instead)

2) Download and install BetterTouchTools (BTT) it's free and updated regularly. http://www.boastr.net

3) Open BTT Preferences, switch to advanced mode and chose "Magic Mouse"

Q: "But I don't have a magic mouse" A: "Doesn't matter, Normal Mice pane won't recognize mouse wheel scroll, so follow this guide".

4) Press "Add new gesture", select Magic Mouse Gesture "Scroll Down (modifier key needed)"

5) Set Custom Keyboard Shortcut to "Cmd + +" (don't be confused here, press Cmd and the button on your keyboard with a "+" (plus) sign)

6) Do the same with "Scroll Up (modifier key needed)", this time of course add Custom Keyboard Shortcut to "Cmd + -"

You might have to do this per specific app to counter some unforeseen consequences using applications that already try to counter this (like MS programs, virtual machines and the like.)

Thanks a Million Contradel! it was not obvious for me to make the settings under Magic Mouse Tab when I am using other mouse.