microsoft / microsoft/vscode

Support Ctrl+scroll wheel zoom for text in the Markdown preview

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#332,888 1 comment 1 reaction 1 assignee Claimed by @vijayupadya View on GitHub
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Description

There's currently no way to enlarge just the rendered text in the Markdown preview pane using the mouse. The only scroll-based zoom that exists today is for Mermaid diagrams (Alt+scroll), which doesn't help with the surrounding prose. The only way to make preview text bigger is to use VS Code's global zoom (Ctrl + / Ctrl -), which zooms the entire window/UI rather than just the preview content, and is known to cause layout issues in the preview pane at non-default zoom levels.

The solution I would like:

Allow Ctrl + mouse wheel scroll to increase/decrease the font size specifically within the Markdown preview webview, similar to how editor.mouseWheelZoom already works for text editors. This would let users adjust preview text size independently of the rest of the VS Code UI.

Alternatives considered

VS Code's global zoom (View > Appearance > Zoom) — works, but affects the entire window and has known display glitches in the preview at certain zoom levels.
Third-party extensions like "markdown-preview-zoom" — functional, but this feels like a natural extension of behavior VS Code already supports elsewhere (the editor side).

Additional context
My eyesight has been getting worse, and being able to comfortably enlarge just the preview text — without resizing the whole editor — would make a real difference for everyday use. I suspect this would help many users with low vision or anyone working on a smaller/high-DPI screen.

Contributor guide

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