This website offers the option for it to be viewed in different text sizes. Three icons allow you to select the different size text and are on each page on the right-hand side. The font-size will increase or decrease incrementally as you click one of the icons. You can always revert to the 'default' size by clicking the default font size icon.
[Please note in Internet Explorer (IE), if you have your browser set to load a new page each and every time, then if you have increased the font-size on one page, and then you go to a new page, the font size will revert to the normal default size. To prevent this you will need to change your IE settings to not load a new page.]
If your web browser is set not to use Javascript then you can still alter the size of the screen fonts using the tools built in to the browser:
- Internet Explorer (all Windows versions): Go to the 'View' menu, 'Text Size', and select your desired setting. The default is medium. Alternatively, if you have a mouse with a wheel you can hold the CTRL key on your keyboard whilst scrolling up or down with the wheel to alter the text size.
- Internet Explorer 5.1 (Mac): Go to the View menu and use the 'Text Zoom' feature.
- Apple Safari: Go the 'View' menu and use the 'Make Text Bigger' and 'Make Text Smaller' menu items. Alternatively you can use the option key with + or - to increase or decrease the text size.
- Netscape 7 + (Mac and PC): Go to the 'View' menu and use the 'Text Zoom' feature to change text size. Alternatively you can use the CTRL key with the plus or minus to increase or decrease the size.
- Mozilla (i.e. Firebird / Firefox / Camino, Mac and PC): Go to the 'View' menu and either click the 'Increase Text Size' or 'Decrease Text Size' menu items, or alternatively you can use the CTRL key with the plus or minus to increase or decrease the size.
Text-only version
A text only version of this website is available by clicking the 'text-only' icon. This turns on text-only mode, which shows a more simple, image-free view of the pages. Note that you'll still be able to see the entire site in this mode.
Printer-friendly version
The purpose of this feature is provide the user with a simple link that will convert a page into a printer friendly version (no tables, no background colour etc), retain some of the essential formatting (images, headers) and send a print command to the users printer. Click the 'print this page' icon to access this function.
Standards
This site fully complies with the W3C XHTML 1.0 Standard and will validate.
The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) on this site are essentially written according to W3C standards, but we have included additional formatting information which will cause the CSS not to validate. Unfortunately, different web browsers interpret the CSS standard in different ways - often incorrectly - meaning that it is difficult to create stylesheets which both validate against the appropriate standards, but which also allow users to see the website as intended across a wide variety of web browsers and platforms (i.e. Windows, Mac, Linux, etc). We have tried hard to ensure that our users have the best possible experience when browsing this website, irrespective of the sort of browser or computer they prefer to use, but this has meant that we have had to accommodate various browser inconsistencies in our CSS, at the expense of validation.
Flash
You may notice that this website uses the Flash plugin. It does so only for typographical / aesthetic reasons: if you do not have the Flash plugin installed, you will see exactly the same content.
Browsers
In order to provide good accessiblity some compromises have unfortunately had to be made in terms of full support for certain older browsers which do not support web standards, or support them unreliably or unpredictably. We strongly recommend that you use only the following browsers:
Windows:
- Internet Explorer 6 - available at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.asp. Most people have this on their Windows-based PCs already. If you don't have Internet Explorer, or if you have a version earlier than version 6, you should consider obtaining one of the Mozilla browsers (see below) instead, because they are small and quick to download.
- Mozilla Firefox - available at http://www.mozilla.org/
- Netscape 8 (in Internet Explorer or Firefox rendering mode)
- Opera 8 or above
- Apple Safari - available at http://www.apple.com/safari/
- Mozilla Camino / Firefox - all available at http://www.mozilla.org/
- Mozilla Firefox - available at http://www.mozilla.org/
- Internet Explorer < 6 (Not supported on the Mac)
- Opera < v8 (Mac or PC)
- Netscape < v8 (Mac or PC)
- Konqueror (Linux, any version)
We appreciate that it might not seem easy or desirable to have constantly to upgrade your browser! If you do have an older browser, or one not on the list above, and you are unable or unwilling to change it, rest assured you will still be able to use the site, but you will not have the best viewing experience. Additionally most accessibility enhancements will not be available to you. Netscape 4 users may only view the site in text-only mode. We therefore again strongly recommend you upgrade your browser. If you'd like to read more about why this is a good idea more generally, visit the Web Standards Project.