Changing the browser zoom level

Question

Possible in IE and chrome although it does not work in firefox:

<script>
   function toggleZoomScreen() {
       document.body.style.zoom = "80%";
   } 
</script>

<img src="example.jpg" alt="example" onclick="toggleZoomScreen()">

I would say not possible in most browsers, at least not without some additional plugins. And in any case I would try to avoid relying on the browser's zoom as the implementations vary (some browsers only zoom the fonts, others zoom the images, too etc). Unless you don't care much about user experience.

If you need a more reliable zoom, then consider zooming the page fonts and images with JavaScript and CSS, or possibly on the server side. The image and layout scaling issues could be addressed this way. Of course, this requires a bit more work.

Try if this works for you. This works on FF, IE8+ and chrome. The else part applies for non-firefox browsers. Though this gives you a zoom effect, it does not actually modify the zoom value at browser level.

    var currFFZoom = 1;
    var currIEZoom = 100;

    $('#plusBtn').on('click',function(){
        if ($.browser.mozilla){
            var step = 0.02;
            currFFZoom += step; 
            $('body').css('MozTransform','scale(' + currFFZoom + ')');
        } else {
            var step = 2;
            currIEZoom += step;
            $('body').css('zoom', ' ' + currIEZoom + '%');
        }
    });

    $('#minusBtn').on('click',function(){
        if ($.browser.mozilla){
            var step = 0.02;
            currFFZoom -= step;                 
            $('body').css('MozTransform','scale(' + currFFZoom + ')');

        } else {
            var step = 2;
            currIEZoom -= step;
            $('body').css('zoom', ' ' + currIEZoom + '%');
        }
    });

You can use the CSS3 zoom function, but I have not tested it yet with jQuery. Will try now and let you know. UPDATE: tested it, works but it's fun

I could't find a way to change the actual browser zoom level, but you can get pretty close with CSS transform: scale(). Here is my solution based on JavaScript and jQuery:

<!-- Trigger -->
<ul id="zoom_triggers">
    <li><a id="zoom_in">zoom in</a></li>
    <li><a id="zoom_out">zoom out</a></li>
    <li><a id="zoom_reset">reset zoom</a></li>
</ul>

<script>
    jQuery(document).ready(function($)
    {
        // Set initial zoom level
        var zoom_level=100;

        // Click events
        $('#zoom_in').click(function() { zoom_page(10, $(this)) });
        $('#zoom_out').click(function() { zoom_page(-10, $(this)) });
        $('#zoom_reset').click(function() { zoom_page(0, $(this)) });

        // Zoom function
        function zoom_page(step, trigger)
        {
            // Zoom just to steps in or out
            if(zoom_level>=120 && step>0 || zoom_level<=80 && step<0) return;

            // Set / reset zoom
            if(step==0) zoom_level=100;
            else zoom_level=zoom_level+step;

            // Set page zoom via CSS
            $('body').css({
                transform: 'scale('+(zoom_level/100)+')', // set zoom
                transformOrigin: '50% 0' // set transform scale base
            });

            // Adjust page to zoom width
            if(zoom_level>100) $('body').css({ width: (zoom_level*1.2)+'%' });
            else $('body').css({ width: '100%' });

            // Activate / deaktivate trigger (use CSS to make them look different)
            if(zoom_level>=120 || zoom_level<=80) trigger.addClass('disabled');
            else trigger.parents('ul').find('.disabled').removeClass('disabled');
            if(zoom_level!=100) $('#zoom_reset').removeClass('disabled');
            else $('#zoom_reset').addClass('disabled');
        }
    });
</script>