HELP!

Thurrock Community Information

how to get the most out of your community portal

Finding your way around this web site
'Channels' of community information
Search engine for hosted sites

Viewing this site at different monitor resolutions

Finding your way around this web site

Welcome to Thurrock Community Information.

In designing this site we have sought to make information relevant to Thurrock easy for you to find by using simple navigation and clear references throughout. You can always return to our home page by clicking on the big 'thurrock community information' banner at the top left corner, or on the Home text link just below.

Our dark blue header also has a link to our site map page, which lists all the pages that make up this service and shows how they connect to each other.

We use two main methods to help you find detailed information about Thurrock:
'Channels' of community information
Search engine for hosted sites

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'Channels' of community information

On our home page, we have arranged links to TEN channels of local information. A 'channel' is a way of bringing together web sites with a common theme. Each channel is marked by a blue circle. When you move your mouse pointer over the channel name a coloured ball will appear in the circle. These symbols are used elsewhere in the site to indicate channels (for example, on our "What's New" page), and to add a splash of colour!

Within each channel you will find a list of web site links. Each of these links will take you to a web site full of information relevant to Thurrock. Some of these sites are hosted within this Thurrock Community Information site. Other sites, although not hosted by this service, are listed within our channels to bring you the fullest possible list of web links for Thurrock. Web sites which are not hosted by this service are opened in new browser windows.

Some channels have sub-channels within them. For example, if you click on our "Education and Jobs" channel, you will find a sub-channel especially for "Schools".

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Search engine for hosted sites

All web sites hosted as a part of this service - that is to say, all sites stored on the Thurrock Community Information web server - are listed in our community search engine.

The 'search engine' is a computer program which reads all the text of every web page published on this service. By entering a word in the search engine and clicking on the adjacent button you can find every occurence of that word in the Thurrock Community Information web site.

To use the search engine, simply enter a word or phrase in the white box within the dark blue frame at the top of this site, then click on the "search" button next to it.

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Viewing this site at different monitor resolutions

The Thurrock Community Information web site has been designed to display equally well at different monitor resolutions, from 640×480 to 800×600 to 1024×768 and above.

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Viewing 'PDF' documents

Some sections within the Thurrock Community Information (TCI) web site make use of Portable Document Format (PDF) files to deliver large or carefully formatted pages such as application forms, reports and magazines.

To browse these documents you can install a product called Adobe Reader. This FREE software enables you to view, navigate and print PDF files. It is widely-used across the Internet and is compatible with all major computer platforms.

Adobe Reader

Adobe Acrobat Reader can be downloaded from the Adobe web site via the link below:

http://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/

PDF Accessibility

If you use a screen reading program which synthesizes text as audible speech you may experience difficulty reading PDF files. Adobe provide information on their website about Adobe Reader accessibility.

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Making this site easier to read

Thurrock Community Information welcomes visitors with a visual impairment by aiming to make this web site as accessible as possible. We are also pleased to offer advice to visitors on how to get the most out of their web browsers.

This web site is
BOBBY APPROVED
www.cast.org/bobby

Not everyone finds it easy to read small text and certain text/background colour combinations. If you wish to make Thurrock Community Information easier to read all you need to do is make a couple of simple changes in your browser settings.

The following instructions apply to version 5 of Microsoft Internet Explorer. In different browsers the menus and buttons may have different labels.

To change the size of the text, click on View at the top of your browser. A dropdown menu will appear. From this, select Text Size and then Largest. Immediately, the text will be a lot bigger.

You may also find it helpful to change the colour scheme, for example, to a yellow/black combination.

To change the colours in TEN SIMPLE STEPS:

Click Tools at the top of your browser. A dropdown menu will appear.
Select Internet Options... from the menu. Another box will appear.
Click on the button marked Accessibility... in the bottom right of the box. A new box will appear.
Click in the square next to Ignore colors specified on Web pages.
When a tick appears in the box click OK to close the box.
In the Internet Options box (which should still be open; if not, open it again from the Tools menu) click the Colors... button'. Another box will open.
Uncheck the box marked Use Windows colors.
Now click the rectangle to the right of Text and choose a text colour (e.g. yellow).
Then click the rectangle to the right of Background and choose a background colour (e.g. black).
Click OK to confirm your changes, and OK to close the Internet Options box.

Having done all this you should find that most pages you visit automatically have large text that is yellow on a black background.

Thurrock Council Social Services publish an Information Pack For Visually Impaired People. The guide provides a brief general outline of the services available to visually impaired people resident in Thurrock and should give the information required to allow you to independently select those services which are appropriate to you.

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Page reference: www.thurrock-community.org.uk/content.php?page=help Last modified: 23/05/2003	top of page