We hope you find it easy to find your way around the Oldham website.
You can move to different pages either by using the menu bar on the left of each page, move your cursor over the underlined or highlighted text and the cursor will change to a hand. You can then click your mouse to go to the page containing the information.
You can use the Site Map and Site Index pages to quickly see all of the information categories that are available on the website.
Clicking the Search button on the top menu bar will take you to the search page for the site. Here, you can enter specific words and phrases to help you find topics of interest.
You can also click on the home button at any stage and you will be taken back to the home page.
Your Web browser stores a local copy of the pages and documents you view on our website (as well as every other website you visit). This is called caching and is a way of making pages load faster on your computer. Usually this is helpful but sometimes it means you don't see the most recent version of a page/document.
You can force your browser to download the most recent version of a page/document by pressing the CTRL key and the F5 function key at the same time.
You should also delete the temporary files that your browser stores from time to time. You will find instructions on how to do this in your browser's help pages.
The Oldham website has lots of documents and forms that you can download to your computer to read in your own time or to print out. All of these documents are saved in a format called 'portable document format' or PDF for short.
To be able to view and print these files you need to have the portable document file reader called 'Adobe Acrobat Reader' installed on your computer. If you don't already have Acrobat Reader it is freely available from the Abobe website.
If you are using a screen reader to navigate the Oldham website you can use the easy access features of the PDF format to easily read all of the documents available. You can find more information on accessibility at the Access Adobe website.
You can switch to a 'Priner Friendly' version of any page in our website by clicking on the 'Printer Friendly Version' link at the top of the page. To print pages/documents either pressing Ctrl + P, Click the Print toolbar button or click File | Print in your browser's menu.
The Oldham website is designed to be compatible with recent versions of all major web browser programs. The site works in ALL browsers but users of older browsers will not enjoy the full graphical content of the pages.
You can get the latest versions of all major web browser programs, free of charge, by visiting the manufacturer's websites. You will also find these programs on many computer magazine cover disks.
You can change the size of the text throughout our website. In most browsers (except Microsoft Internet Explorer) you can do this by pressing CTRL+ or CTRL- on your keyboard. In Microsoft Internet Explorer you can change the text size using the Text Size option on the View menu.
The Oldham website has been designed with reference to guidelines from the Royal National Institute for the Blind to be legible to as wide an audience as possible. If you are experiencing problems with legibility, or you find that this site is uncomfortable to read, you may wish to consider changing some of the default settings of your browser. This will alter the way web pages appear on your screen. Depending upon which browser and computer system you are using, these can be found in either the Preferences or Options menus.
Choosing a larger font size will mean that pages will be delivered to you with larger text, which will be easier to read. Some browsers also allow you to change the default font itself (it is typically set to Times or an equivalent) and you may find that switching to a sans serif font specifically designed for computing screens will make a distinct improvement. Lastly, some browsers allow you to overide all web page's text colour and background colour/image. By experimenting, you may be able to find a combination that improves the contrast between text and background.
For further information, please see the RNIB website. You may also find your browser manufacturer's website to be helpful.
We hope that you like the Oldham website, and welcome any comments or suggestions you may have on ways of developing it further. You can send these to us by filling out the 'Contact Us' form.
We would like to know if you are experiencing problems with the Oldham website. To report any errors, broken links etc., please use the 'Contact Us' form.