Accessibility

We hope that you’re not having any problems using this website. However, if you do have any difficulty viewing the site, there are some things you can do to make it easier.
These include changing the settings of your web browser in order to alter the way pages are displayed, which may improve readability or using specifically provided keyboard shortcuts in case you have difficulty using a mouse.

It is the policy of the Belfast Trust to publish some documents in Adobe Acrobat format.

Documents published in Adobe Acrobat require Adobe Reader. This reader can be downloaded free at http://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/

This website is Browsealoud enabled. Browsealoud is a speech enabling program that makes web content more accessible to anyone with difficulties reading. Simply by hovering your mouse pointer over an area of text, Browsealoud will read that text out loud. Browsealoud not only speech enables the website content, it will also speak out loud the menus and hyperlinks, helping you navigate the website more easily. All you have to do to take advantage of this service, is download the free Browsealoud program. The download is 3-12MB.

Browsealoud is a Windows application and can be used with Internet Explorer 4 upwards or Netscape Navigator.

Ignore settings specified by a web page
Change the size of the font
Change the style of the font
Change the colour of the font
Change the background colour
Stop images downloading (so they are not visible)

To change your settings, please click on one of the following browser types for a step by step guide:

Internet Explorer

How do I ignore the font/colour settings specified?
From the browser menu, go to the ‘Tools’ menu and select ‘Internet Options’. Click on the ‘Accessibility’ option, which can be found under the ‘General’ tab. You will see the following options:

Ignore colours specified on web pages
Ignore font styles specified on web pages
Ignore font sizes specified on web pages

Tick the options that are appropriate to you.
Click ‘OK’
Click ‘OK’ again to close the ‘Internet Options’ box.

How do I change the colours of the text and background?
From the browser menu, go to the ‘Tools’ menu and select ‘Internet Options’.
Click on the ‘Colours’ option, which can be found under the ‘General’ tab
Untick the ‘Use windows colours’ option
Select your own text and background colours (black text on a yellow background provides the most contrast)
To change the colours of visited and unvisited links, click on the colours and select your preferred colour from the palette that appears.
Click ‘Ok’
Click ‘Ok’ again to close the ‘Internet Options’ box.

How do I change the font style?
From the browser menu, go to the ‘Tools’ menu and select ‘Internet Options’.
Click on the ‘Accessibility’ option, which can be found under the ‘General’ tab
Tick the ‘Ignore font styles specified on Web pages’ option
Click ‘Ok’
Back at the ‘General’ tab, click ‘Fonts’
From this screen you can change the way your pages display ‘web page font’ and ‘plain text font’.
Once you have chosen your required settings, click ‘Ok’
Click ‘Ok’ again to close the ‘Internet Options’ box.

How do I change the font size?
Go to ‘View’ and select ‘Text Size’ and select the appropriate size text, e.g. ‘largest’.
Adjust as appropriate

How do I stop images downloading?
This allows you to only view text and the page will load much faster
From the main menu, go to the ‘Tools’ menu and select ‘Interent Options’
Go to the ‘Advanced’ tab
Scroll down the settings until you reach ‘Multimedia’
Untick the ‘Show pictures’ option
Click ‘Ok’ to close the ‘Internet Options’ box.

How do I ignore the font/colour settings specified?
From the main menu, go to the ‘Edit’ menu and select ‘Preferences’.
Select ‘Appearance’ and then select ‘Colours’
Under the heading ‘When a web page provides its own colour and background’ check the option next to ‘Use my chosen colours, ignoring the colours and background image specified’
Click ‘Ok’ to close the ‘Preferences’ box.

How do I change the colours of the text and background?
From the main menu, go to the ‘Edit’ menu and select ‘Preferences’.
Select ‘Appearance’ and then select ‘Colours’
Under the heading ‘Text and background’ select your own text and background colours (black text on a yellow background provides the most contrast)
To change the colours of visited and unvisited links, click on the colours and select your preferred colour from the palette that appears.
Click ‘Ok’ to close the ‘Preferences’ box.

How do I change the font style?
From the main menu, go to the ‘Edit’ menu and select ‘Preferences’
Select ‘Appearance’ and then select ‘Fonts’
Change the font type to your required settings
To use these fonts when you visit all websites in future, untick the option next to ‘Allow documents to use other fonts’
Click ‘Ok’ to close the ‘Preferences’ box.

How do I change the font size?
From the main menu, go to the ‘View’ menu and select ‘Text Zoom’.
Select the appropriate size text, e.g. ‘Larger’. Netscape also allows you to choose the size of the text as a percentage of the original.

How do I stop images downloading?
This allows you to only view text and the page will load much faster.
From the main menu, go to the ‘Edit’ menu and select ‘Preferences’
Select ‘Privacy & Security’ then ‘Images’
Under the heading ‘Image Acceptance Policy’ check the option next to ‘Do not load any images’
Click ‘Ok’ to close the ‘Preferences’ box.

How do I ignore the font/colour settings specified?
From the main menu, go to the ‘File’ menu and select ‘Preferences’
Select ‘Page Style’
Under the ‘Author mode’ option, untick the boxes next to the ‘Page style sheet’ and ‘Page fonts and colours’
Click ‘Ok’ to close the ‘Preferences’ box.

How do I change the colours of the text and background?
From the main menu go to the ‘File’ menu and select ‘Preferences’
Select ‘Fonts and colours’
Highlight the font type you would like to change, e.g. ‘Normal’ or ‘Heading 1’
Click the ‘Choose’ button to the right. This will bring up a ‘Font’ box where you can change the font, font style and font size. Choose the settings that are suitable for you
Click ‘Ok’ to close the ‘Font’ box
Back at the ‘Fonts and colours’ options, click on the box to the right of ‘Background colour’ and select your preferred colour from the palette that appears
To change colour of visited and not visited links, at ‘Link style’ click on the ‘My link style’ box to the right
The ‘Links style’ box will appear. Click on the colours and select your preferred colour from the palette that appears
Click ‘Ok’ to close the ‘Link style’ box
Select ‘Page style’
Under the ‘Author mode’ option, untick the boxes next to ‘Page style sheet’ and ‘Page fonts and colours’
Click ‘Ok’ to close the ‘Preferences’ box.

How do I change the font style?
From the main menu, go to the ‘File’ menu and select ‘Preferences
Select ‘Fonts and colours’
Highlight the font type you would like to change, e.g. ‘Normal’ or ‘Heading 1’
Click the ‘Choose’ button to the right. This will bring up a ‘Font’ box where you can change the font, font style and size of the font. Choose the settings that are suitable for you
Click ‘Ok’ to close the ‘Font’ box
To use these fonts when you visit all websites in the future select ‘Page style’ (under ‘Fonts and colours’)
Under the ‘Author mode’ option, untick the boxes next to ‘Page style sheet’ and ‘Page fonts and colours’.

Tick the box next to ‘My fonts and colours’
Click ‘Ok’ to close the ‘Preferences’ box.

How do I change the font size?
You can choose to Zoom the contents of a page (text and images) from 20% - 100%
From the main menu, go to ‘View’ and select ‘Zoom’
Select the magnification of the page that is most suitable for you

How do I stop images downloading?
This allows you to only view text and page will load much faster
From the main menu, go to the ‘File’ menu and select ‘Preferences’
Select ‘Multimedia’
Next to images you will see a drop down menu. Click on the arrow to expand the menu and select ‘Show no images’
Click ‘Ok’ to close the ‘Preferences’ box.

This website strives to meet the needs of computer users with visual impairment or other conditions that limit accessibility. Due to graphics intensive nature of the geographic information on this site, we can only apologise that this cannot yet be presented in an accessible format. If you would like assistance with locating an organisation, please contact them using the telephone or address details supplied.