Giving a presentation or demo and need the audience to see small screen details? ZoomIt enlarges part of the screen, lets you draw on it, and captures screenshots or recordings. Mark Russinovich’s Sysinternals tool runs from the system tray and uses customizable keyboard shortcuts to open its modes.
Zooming and drawing on screen
Press Ctrl+1 to zoom in, then use the mouse wheel or arrow keys to adjust magnification and move around the view. Drawing can start while zoomed, or Ctrl+2 opens drawing mode at the screen’s normal size. Configure alternate shortcuts, along with the drawing pen’s color and size, in ZoomIt’s settings.
Drawing mode includes colored pens and highlight pens, plus tools for lines, rectangles, ellipses, and arrows. Whiteboard and blackboard modes provide plain backgrounds for explaining an idea. Undo the last mark with Ctrl+Z or clear the drawing with E.
What can ZoomIt capture?
ZoomIt can copy a screenshot to the clipboard or save it as a PNG. Region capture supports copying or saving a selected area, and OCR can copy text from a screen region to the clipboard.
Screen recording can capture the full screen, crop the recording, or record only the window under the mouse pointer. Recordings are saved as MP4 or GIF. A separate live-zoom mode and live-draw mode provide screen presentation options without using the standard zoom-and-draw sequence.
- Ctrl+C copies a screenshot; Ctrl+S saves one as a PNG.
- Ctrl+Alt+6 copies recognized text from a selected region.
- Ctrl+5 starts or stops a full-screen recording.
Timer and DemoType
The countdown timer opens with Ctrl+3. It continues running if the timer window is minimized or left behind with Alt+Tab; click the tray icon to bring it back. Adjust its duration with Ctrl and the mouse wheel or arrow keys.
DemoType presents text snippets in sequence. Ctrl+7 starts the feature, while Ctrl+Shift+7 moves to the previous snippet; in user-driven mode, Space advances to the next one.
Pros
- Zoom and draw on the enlarged screen
- Copy or save screen regions and OCR text
- Record full-screen or cursor-focused video as MP4 or GIF
- Use a countdown timer that keeps running when minimized
Can ZoomIt annotate without enlarging the screen?
Yes. Ctrl+2 starts drawing mode at the screen’s normal resolution.
Can ZoomIt extract text from a screen area?
Yes. Its OCR command copies text recognized in a selected region to the clipboard.
What file formats does ZoomIt use for captures?
Screenshots save as PNG, while screen recordings can be saved as MP4 or GIF.