Screen Zoom and Mouse Indicator on Ubuntu 20.04

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Ubuntu can help you to enlarge screen items and easily display cursor movements to your audience. This article is a company to Focal For Teachers and continuation to Screen Zoom on KDE. This is practicable to every GNOME operating system not only Ubuntu but also Fedora, Red Hat, Zorin and others. You can watch practical examples in this new video below and also image editing videos I published recently. For teachers and tutorial makers, this article is for you. Enjoy!

(Ubuntu for teaching in two minutes - this video displays how to zoom in and make the cursor looks clearer to audience)

Examples

• Video 1 uses large cursor
• Video 2 uses keystroke indicator
• Video 3 uses cursor indicator

1. Screen Zoom

• Enable: Alt+Super+8
• Disable: Alt+Super+8
• Configuration: System Settings > Universal Access > Zoom

Don't forget that Super key is Windows key on your keyboard. For the configuration, for most cases you will only need Magnification 1.50 and Follow Cursor Movement type of zooming and no Crosshair.

(Ubuntu 20.04 screen with large cursor, large text, cursor indicator enabled, cursor indicator, and zoom configuration)

2. Enlarge Cursor

• System Settings > Universal Access > Cursor Size > select one.

Large cursor helps your audience follow your movements. It is one option when cursor indicator is not available and much clearer when combined with it.

3. Enlarge Font

• Enable: System Settings > Universal Access > Large Text > Toggle ON.
• Disable: System Settings > Universal Access > Large Text > Toggle OFF.

This is usable to make screen text looks clearer. This method is the faster one than reducing your monitor resolution.

4. Typing Indicator

• Enable: Alt+F2 and type command screenkey
• Disable: Alt+F2 and type command killall screenkey

Typing indicator or keystroke indicator displays everything you type to your screen so audience know what keys you are pressing. It is not preinstalled so you need to install it yourself (don't worry, it is easy) as the package name is screenkey.

5. Cursor Indicator

• Emphasize cursor: press Ctrl
• Enable this feature: System Settings > Universal Access > Cursor Indicator

This cursor indicator or cursor location is equivalent to same feature on Microsoft Windows. Watch the video to see it in action. 

Note

For Zorin 15, I found that mouse indicator is failed to show using System Settings but is easy to enable using command line below. It is thanks to Askubuntu discussion regarding GNOME.

$ gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.mouse locate-pointer true #to enable
$ gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.mouse locate-pointer false #to disable

Happy teaching!

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Originally posted here: https://ift.tt/2YYszDI