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I'm using the Visual Studio 2013 form designer to edit a form. The size of the form in the designer window is too big so I want to zoom out.

Form in form designer occluded and in need of zooming out

In applications like Photoshop or Blend I could (among other things) use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-0 to fit the design to the screen.

In Visual Studio how do I zoom out in the form design window?

dumbledad
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  • Have you tried ctrl-scrollwheel or ctrl-- (minus on the keypad) yet? I don't think there is a "fit to screen" option, but then forms, lol. –  Oct 01 '13 at 16:25
  • I have - works on code listings but not in the forms designer. – dumbledad Oct 02 '13 at 17:12

2 Answers2

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The Windows Forms designer doesn't zoom. The WPF one does because it's vector based, but WinForms is pixel based you don't get the zooming.

If you've got multiple monitors you can drag the designer to a second screen and work with it that way, or you can press Alt+Shift+Enter to toggle full screen and work with it that way.

Richard Banks
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    Thanks Richard. What do you mean by "pixel based"? Adobe Illustrator is for authoring vector based work while Photoshop is for authoring pixel based work. They both allow zooming. – dumbledad Oct 04 '13 at 08:50
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    Pixel based meaning the controls and elements are defined with specific widths and heights measured in pixels, and are rendered accordingly. They won't scale as resolution scales and aren't easy to zoom since you can really only zoom in large steps if you want to retain fidelity. i.e. 100%, 200%, 400%, etc. The designer could implement a more graduated zooming feature, but the loss of precision and the antialiasing needed would make working with winforms and doing pixel perfect layouts impossibly annoying. It's not such a problem with graphics programs which is why they offer it. – Richard Banks Oct 04 '13 at 13:08
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    I want to see pixels – MajesticRa Mar 04 '18 at 11:39
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    I decreased my screen resolution. That's my zoom feature ;) – OneWorld Sep 20 '19 at 08:43
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in VS 2022 I've been doing some C# and had the same problem with the default grid element (the form) being zoomed way out in the Designer, so it looked extremely small, and the controls were super tiny. I found the following Microsoft page that explains how to change the zoom feature (yes, Visual Studio 2022 has a zoom feature). https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/desktop/winforms/controls/how-to-set-grid-options-for-all-windows-forms?view=netframeworkdesktop-4.8

So, I went into the Tools menu, down to Options, and then in the Options window I scrolled down to the XAML Designer General option. I changed the "Zoom by using" setting to "Mouse Wheel". Using "Ctrl + Mouse Wheel" didn't work for me. And I changed the "Default Zoom Setting" to "Last Used". I closed VS and opened it again. "Last Used" didn't work for me. So, I changed the "Default Zoom Setting" back to "Fit all". Closed VS again (you need to do this for the new settings to take effect). Opened VS again. And everything worked. I am able to use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out of the form. The settings I'm using are "Mouse Wheel" and "Fit All".

Steph
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