Monday 08 September 2008

Browser Accessibility Options

You can specify the font sizes, styles and colours, and foreground and background colours of web pages displayed on your computer, even if the person creating the web page has already specified these. You can also set the colour you would like to indicate links in web pages.
This could be useful if you have impaired vision or find certain colours/ contrasts easier to read.
You can set Internet Explorer to use the fonts and colours of your choice, or to use the Windows 'default' colours and fonts.
The links below will take you to step by step guidelines for adjusting text sizes and colours on your screen.
Microsoft Internet Explorer for PC
  • Open Internet Explorer Web Browser
  • Select 'Tools' from the menu at the top of your window
  • From the options which appear, select 'Internet options...'.
  • Click the 'General' tab
  • Click the button marked 'Accessibility'
  • To change the font size, tick the checkbox labelled 'Ignore font sizes specified on Web pages'
  • To remove background and font colours, tick the checkbox labelled 'Ignore colours specified on web pages'
  • Click OK (and again if necessary)
  • Select 'View' from the menu at the top of the window
  • Select 'Text Size'
  • Select desired text size
Microsoft Internet Explorer for Apple Mac
  • Open Internet Explorer Web Browser.
  • Select the "edit" menu at the top of the window.
  • From the options menu which appears, select "preferences".
  • Click "web content"
  • Deselect the button labelled "show style sheets"
  • Return to the list of preferences
  • Click on "web browser"
  • Select "language/fonts"
  • Select the font size you require
Instructions for users of Netscape Navigator
Text:
  • Select 'Edit' from the menu at the top of the window and choose 'Preferences'
  • Open the Appearance group and click on 'Fonts' category
  • Next to 'For the encoding' should read Western to tell the computer which types of letters and symbols to use. Select 18 from 'size'
  • Next to the Variable Width Font field there is a drop down box - select 'Arial'. The Fixed Width Font box should read 'Courier New' - select 18 from 'size'
  • To override the fonts used by the web page author, select 'use my default fonts overriding document specified fonts'
  • Click on 'OK'
Colours:
  • Select 'Edit' from the menu at the top of the window and choose 'Preferences'.
  • Open the Appearance group and click on the 'Colours' category.
  • Select a colour button to change the colours of text, background, unvisited links, or visited links
  • To override the colours used by the web page author, select 'Always use my colours, overriding document'
  • Click on 'OK'