On this site

Citizens Advice

Help

The help section contains information on how to get the most from visiting the Citizens Advice website.

Using the site includes information on content.

ClearType enhances screen fonts in Windows XP.

Printing web pages - about printer-friendly web pages on this site.

Viewer downloads - how to download documents from the site.

Flash video content - how to use video and audio content on this site.

Using search - how to use the Citizens Advice website search facility.

Social bookmarking tool provides a quick and easy method for you to bookmark Citizens Advice press releases on your favourite social network site(s).

RSS or news feeds, we provide information to help get you started.

Help can be accessed from the menu bar on the top right on every page of the Citizens Advice website.

Our accessibility page covers our site accessibility features, how to customise your computer and keyboard shortcuts. Please useful links to further accessibility information.

For additional help, please contact us

Using the site

Site structure

The site covers information about the Citizens Advice service in England and Wales. It also includes a directory of local CAB and the opportunity to find out more about becoming a CAB volunteer.

The main navigation is organised under the heading 'On this site' and links into the main content areas:

About us
Get advice
Campaigning for change
Partnership working
Volunteer
Support us
Job opportunities
Publications
Press office
Adviser resources

as listed on the left-hand side of the screen within the site, or in the footer links.

Page structure

The page structure of the site stays the same throughout the site and has the following features:

the CAB logo in the top left hand corner, which is a link back to the home page
the main site tools (accessibility, help, site map, contact us) at the top right of the page along with a site search box
links to the different content areas on the left-hand side
many key content links are also repeated in the footer.

Navigating Citizens Advice website

Your starting point when entering Citizens Advice website depends on how you arrived at the website. For example if you came from a search engine link, this would usually take you to the home page of the site; or if you had bookmarked one of the content areas, then that would be your starting point. Or you may have got to the Citizens Advice website via a link from another website to a particular page or section.

All text links are dark blue and underlined. When you move your mouse cursor over a link (known as ‘roll over'), the text will change to red. As soon as you select a link and view the content, the link will change to light blue. This way, you can always tell which sections you have looked at.

As you browse through the content, a breadcrumb trail will appear above the page’s main heading and will indicate where you are in the site from the home page. For example, >Home>Volunteer>Volunteer bureau search will be seen when you are enquiring about volunteering. Selecting a link from the breadcrumb trail will take you to that page.

Note: If you are not sure whether something is a link, move the cursor over a word; if it's a link, the cursor will change from an arrow to a hand with the finger extended.

ClearType: enhance screen fonts in Windows XP

This step-by-step guide describes how to enable ClearType to sharpen fonts on your Windows XP display. ClearType enhances your display by smoothing the edges of screen fonts. ClearType works especially well on Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) devices, including flat screen monitors and laptop computers.

To use Cleartype for screen fonts:

Select Start, select Control Panel, select Appearance and Themes, and then select Display.
On the Appearance tab, select Effects.
Select Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts check box, and then select ClearType in the list.

Printing web pages

The main content of this website can be printed in a printer-friendly format. To print a page in printer-friendly format select the printer image at the top right of the web page.

Viewer downloads

You may need to access content on the Citizens Advice website that requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to view. You will need to download this software from the Internet and install it prior to viewing content in this format.

Adobe Acrobat Reader is free software that lets you view and print Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files on all major computer platforms, as well as fill in and submit Adobe PDF forms online. An expanded version of Acrobat Reader for Windows offers additional functionality, including support for the visually impaired and the ability to search a collection of Adobe PDF files.

To obtain Adobe Acrobat Reader: www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

You may also require access to Microsoft Office packages such as Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

To download free versions of any of these software packages: http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/

To download any of the above software, please follow the instructions given on the relevant website.

Flash video content

Viewing content

You may need to access content on the Citizens Advice website that requires Adobe Flash Player to view. You can download this freely available browser plug-in prior to viewing the content from:

www.adobe.com

To download and install Flash player, please follow the instructions given on the relevant Adobe website.

Content load time

Content load time may become slow as more users access a particular video, therefore we recommend letting the video buffer (allow the content to temporarily download while it is being moved from our server to your web browser) for a few minutes before playing it.

Should the video fail to load, it may have been removed or the link broken, in which case, please contact us.

Video controls

Play / Pause - Pressing this button allows you to play and pause the content.
Stop / Previous / Next - The stop button will stop the video, pressing the either the previous or next button will move the progess bar to its respective end.
Progession - Once the video is fully loaded you can drag the progession bar in either direction to a specific time within the video.
Volume Control - The volume icon allows you to enable or disable the sound, while dragging the bar will allow you to increase or decrease the volume.
Full Screen - Pressing this button will cause the video to fit the size of your screen, pressing this button once in full screen will return the video to its normal size.
Caption / Subtitle - By default captions will be turn on, you can click this button in order to remove caption or restore it.

Using search

Starting a search

In the search text box, enter a word or phrase that best describes the information you are looking for and select 'Search'.

Interpreting search results

When your search is completed, the results screen will show up to 10 matching documents. If there are more than 10, a link at the top and bottom of the list allows you to move to the next screen, with the next 10 in the sequence, until you reach the end of the search results.

The search results will look something like the example below, giving you

the number of documents located, and how many web pages (in the example below, there are 496 matching documents, displayed on 10 web pages)
the documents listed in order of relevance to the word or phrase that you search on the higher the percentage, the more relevant
a summary of the contents of each document.

Screen shot of the search results page

Social bookmarking

Citizens Advice press releases include links to a range of social bookmarking websites

Social bookmarking services

Del.icio.us

To register, go to: http://del.icio.us/register

For more information: http://del.icio.us/about

Digg

To register, go to: http://digg.com/register

For more information: http://digg.com/about

For more information: www.twitter.com/about

RSS / News feeds

What are news feeds?

News feeds are also known as RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and are usally indicated on a web page by an orange button [image of button].

They allow you to see when websites have added new content. You can get the latest headlines from websites in one place, as soon as its published, without having to visit the websites you have taken the feed from.

How do I start using feeds?

In general, the first thing you need is something called a news reader. This is a piece of software that checks the feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added. There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications.

Browser-based news readers let you catch up with your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer, whereas downloadable applications let you store them on your main computer, in the same way that you either download your email using Outlook, or keep it on a web-based service like Hotmail.

Once you have chosen a news reader, all you have to do is to decide what content you want it to receive. For example, if you would like the latest Citizens Advice press releases, simply visit the Press office page and you will notice an orange button below the latest press releases.

rss icon

If you select the RSS button you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including by dragging the URL of the feed into your news reader or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader.

Some browsers, including Internet Expolorer 7+, Firefox, Opera and Safari, automatically check for feeds for you when you visit a website, and display an icon when they find one. This can make subscribing to feeds much easier. For more details on these, please check their websites.