Pinch, zoom and turn it the right way up
Make a map, a photograph or a city form as large as your eyes need it, move about inside it, and put it back to how it was in one movement.
A tablet screen understands two fingers as well as one, and that is where nearly all of its usefulness for tired eyes lives.
Two fingers apart makes a thing bigger. Two fingers together makes it smaller. Two fingers twisted turns it round. And a quick double tap does the whole lot at once, guessing the size you probably wanted.
Key points
- Spread two fingers to enlarge anything, and pinch to come back out
- Turn a map or a sideways letter the right way up, and put north back at the top
- Use Fit to Width to size a document to your screen in one press
- Read small print at any size you like, knowing the document is unchanged
What to remember
- The little compass that appears when a map is twisted is a button: pressing it puts north back at the top.
- Zooming changes your distance from a thing, never the thing. That makes it entirely safe to do to somebody else’s photographs too.
- Fit to Width is the one button worth hunting for in any document. It sizes the page to your screen in one press.
Try this
Open any photograph on your own tablet and spread two fingers across it until one face fills the screen. Then pinch back out. Do it three times, so your hands stop asking permission.
Practice: Pinch, zoom and turn it the right way up. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.