Presumably reflowing zoom would be the same as upping the zoom level of the browser (so like the Ctrl+scroll mentioned in the post).
You know when you make your browser screen narrower the content on the page (should) move around in such a way that you don’t need to scroll horizontally to see everything.
In theory it would do something like this:
Full width:
1 2 3 4
Narrower:
1 2
3 4
Even narrower:
1
2
3
4
That’s what “reflowing” means in a web development context.
The way that that traditional zoom would work is kind of similar in that it just renders the entire page at the magnifying level you’ve got it set to, which has the side effect of basically giving the window less room to render in.
A 10px by 10px box rendered at 200% zoom would be rendered as 20 by 20.
If your browser window is 100px by 100px then at 100% zoom it’s taking up 10% of the screen in either direction, but at 200% zoom (but the same actual window size) it’s taking up 20% in either direction, like you’ve made your browser window 50 by 50.
Pinch to zoom doesn’t do that. It makes everything bigger, but doesn’t trigger any reflow, so by zooming in content may appear off screen and require you to scroll to it to see things.
Both methods have their uses. If you’re someone that just needs everything on your web page a bigger than the default it’s probably better to use the traditional zoom method so as not to introduce additional horizontal scrolling as you use the page. If you can use most of the page just fine at your current zoom level but need to blow up the occasional thing on the page to make out some sort of detail then pinch to zoom would be a lot easier than zooming the entire page in, letting it reflow, and then finding what you need to find again.
#CluesBySam - Jan 20th 2026 (Medium) 03:14 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩