Changing your Browser settings

Internet Explorer

You can specify the font sizes, styles and colours, and foreground and background colours of Web pages displayed on your computer screen, even if the author of the Web page has already specified these. You can also specify the colour used to indicate links in Web pages, or a special colour for links that is used only when the mouse passes over the link.

This is useful if you have low vision, need larger fonts, or need high-contrast colours. You can set Internet Explorer to use the colours and fonts you specify, your default Windows colours and fonts, or the settings you specify in your own style sheet.

The simplest way to change the browser settings is to select Fonts from the View menu in Internet Explorer 4 or earlier or select Text Size from the View menu in Internet Explorer 5 and select the text size you want to use.

For more control over browser setting select Internet Options from the View menu in Internet Explorer 4 or earlier or the Tools menu in Internet Explorer 5.

Internet Options allows you to changes fonts and background colours and use your own stylesheet to further customise the browser to your accessibility needs.

Netscape

You can specify which fonts and font sizes are used to display web pages in your browser. You can also select character-set encodings.

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Open the Appearance group and select the Fonts category.
3. Choose an encoding to tell the computer which types of letters and symbols to use
4. Choose your default fonts from the Variable Width Font and Fixed Width Font pop-up menus. (Fixed-width fonts are often used for filling in forms.)
5. Select one of the following:
   
   • To specify that your default fonts are always used instead of the fonts chosen by a document's author, select "Use my default fonts, overriding document-specified fonts."
   • To specify that page fonts are used only when they are available without downloading (saves time), select "Use document-specified fonts, but disable Dynamic Fonts."
   • To specify that page fonts are always used, select "Use document-specified fonts, including Dynamic Fonts."

If you view web pages in more than one encoding scheme (for instance, Western and Chinese), you can choose fonts and font sizes for each encoding.

Useful Links

Directgov - Disability - Directgov provides a single point of online access to government services and information. Including information for disabled people.

RNIB - There are two million people in the UK with sight problems. Some of these will be blind and some partially sighted. RNIB works to enable people with sight problems to live their daily lives independently.

Disability Rights Commission - The Disability Discrimination Act 1995; new requirements to make goods, facilities and services more accessible to disabled people from 2004.

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