Make QuickLook go zoom

QuickLook is probably my favorite new Leopard feature. The ability view any document with just the touch of a spacebar may not have revolutionized my life, but it’s certainly had an effect. I try to QuickLook everything now, even when I’m just wandering around in the real world. Note: people don’t like it when you try to QuickLook their pets. Or children.

But sometimes you want to focus on just a particular section of a file. Well, with a couple of little tricks, you can actually zoom in on the file right in QuickLook. How to do that differs based on what kind of file you’re looking at. If it’s an image, like a JPG or PSD, you can hold down the option key. You’ll see the cursor turn into a magnifying glass, and when you click on the image you’ll zoom in. Holding down shift-option while clicking will zoom you out, and for an extra bonus tip, you can hold down option and use your scroll wheel or two-fingered scrolling on your trackpad.

However, if you’re viewing a PDF, it’s a little different. Holding down option gets you nada. Instead, you’ll need to use a pair of keyboard shortcuts: command-equal will zoom in, and command-minus will zoom out.

So far, I haven’t been able to get this working with other file types, like text or PowerPoint presentations; but since QuickLook is an extensible system, I wonder if it’s something developers can specify for their file formats.