Technology

iZoom - free magnification software

Summary: A partially sighted user’s review of iZoom 1.1 magnification software, which can be downloaded free of charge.

• Introduction
• iZoom 1.1
• Limitations
• Marketing
• Other products from Issist
• Conclusion

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Introduction

There is a large number of freeware and shareware magnification software packages available and there has been for some time. At the time of writing there were 32 freeware and shareware Windows magnification utilities listed at http://www.magnifiers.org, a web site describing itself as the “screen magnifiers homepage”. An Internet search would find other packages. But until last year, I had not found anything more helpful than the magnification utility that has been included as part of the Windows operating system since Windows 98. At least that was my opinion as a partially sighted computer user. Some are graphical representations of magnifying glasses, with the magnified area in the lens. Some people may find this more pleasant to use.

iZoom 1.1

In 2005 iZoom 1.1 from Issist became available, and this has far more functionality than any other freeware magnification program that I know of. The focus of the magnification will fill the screen. It can magnify from 1.5 to 16 times, which covers the highest settings that most people would find practical to use. There are other options for the appearance of the magnification available, lens, line and split screen horizontal or vertical. There is a range of false colours available including black and white and reverse contrast. There is also some artificial speech support, although this doesn’t read Word documents, for example. IZoom works on Windows XP and 2000.

Limitations

IZoom does not have all the features that the more expensive commercial magnification software products have. It works best at a resolution of 800 x 600 or less and with 16-bit colour or less. The tracking is not entirely consistent. The focus will follow the typing caret and the mouse cursor. When tabbing around icons on the desktop, however, or when using Alt + Tab to change program, the focus does not follow the highlighted screen area. It does also slow down the PC when it is running, and is limited to Windows 2000 and XP only; there are many Windows 98 users still out there.

Marketing

Issist also run a service to “iEnhance” web sites; they explain this “means that your website becomes accessible to those with a range of disabilities”. They go on to say “There are no changes required on your website, except the addition of a link to our downloads page where a user can quickly obtain the latest version of our plugin respective to their disability“. I could not find an example of a web site that has been iEnhanced, so I am not entirely clear how this works. When you go to a web site when you have iZoom running you get a message saying “Send request to iEnhance this web site”, clicking on this generates a message requesting that the web site is iEnhanced.

Other products from Issist

Issist also supply priced software products. There is an iZoom 1.2, with enhanced features for 79 US Dollars, and iZoom2Go, which is a pen drive version of the same software for 249 USD. This can be minimised to the systems tray, and has an improved interface and is clearer at high zoom levels in XP.

Conclusion

Most users of magnification simply want to make the text on the screen appear bigger, and iZoom does this successfully. The most important difference between iZoom and other free magnification programs is that the focus of the magnifier can fill the screen. IZoom does have a range of other features, and although it does not have the same range of features that you get with the more expensive products, anecdotal evidence at least suggest that some of the functions are not often used anyway.

If you are willing to run your PC with “low” graphics settings, then iZoom is a viable magnifier.

The software can be downloaded from the Issist web site where there are also FAQs and discussion forums for anyone who wants to find out more.

Content author: technology@rnib.org.uk

Last updated: 20/11/2008 11:13