- Home »
Accessibility Guide
This page contains information about the options available to maximise the accessibility of this website. It sets out the features we have used to ensure the site is as accessible as possible to people with impairments and the technology they use.
Jump to:
- Accessible stylesheets and high visibility layout
- Access keys
- Readspeaker
- Adjusting the size of text
- Accessibility features
- Navigating around the site
- Site Map
- Contact Information
1. Accessible stylesheets and high visibility layouts
We offer the facility for you to change the look of our site depending on your needs. You can change the background colour of our pages and the text size and colour.
Select a different style for our site.
2. Access keys
This page provides information about access keys used on this website.
Access keys produce keyboard shortcuts as an alternative form of navigation and are supported in most Internet browsers.
Access keys are there to enable users who have trouble using, or prefer not to use, a mouse to access the website.
Each of the areas of the website has been constructed to allow users to turn keyboard strokes into actions.
This site uses the UK Government access keys system. This provides another form of navigation through the site, using keyboard shortcuts.
Using Access Keys:
Press and hold the 'Alt' key
Press the letter or number of the access key as listed below
Press the return key. You should now be redirected to the page you require
Access keys used on this website
- s skip to main content
- 1 home
- 2 translation
- 3 site map
- 4 contact
- 5 help
- 6 accessibility
Technical note
The use of access keys depends on the type of operating system you are using.
Access keys are only supported by MS Internet Explorer 4 and above browsers and by Netscape version 6 and above browsers.
With the Macintosh system, the user has to press the 'Ctrl' key and the access key.
3. Readspeaker
We have enabled the Readspeaker service on this site to help anyone who prefers to listen than to read, including people with impaired vision, dyslexia, or low literacy.
You do not need to install any special software on your computer to use this service.
To listen to a page, simply use the Have this page read aloud link at the top of the page.
Open Readspeaker on the Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service web site (opens in new window)
4. Adjusting the size of text
We offer the facility for you to change the look of our site depending on your needs. You can change the text size and text colour and the background colour of our pages.
Select a different size of text for our site
5. Accessibility features
The design of our website includes a number of accessibility features including:
- Access keys
- Accessibility stylesheets
- A common design throughout rather than providing text only pages for disabled users, and allowing text sizes and colours to be changed to suit the users needs.
- Ensuring that all images used in our site are given appropriate alternative text descriptions ("ALT texts"), as required by internationally-recognised Web accessibility guidelines. All graphical navigation buttons are similarly ALT-tagged.
- To aid users of text-only and audio browsers we have included a hidden accessibility feature, which enables the user to "skip over" the main page navigation buttons (rather then having to tab through them manually at the start of every page). Thus, the user can jump immediately down to the main content of the page.
- We avoid the use of frames throughout the website.
- This site uses PDF (Adobe Acrobat) file format for the publication of large and complex documents. Please note that Adobe Acrobat documents can be converted back to plain text using Adobe's Web-based conversion service. We always try to add the size of the PDF to all PDF links. See below for accessible PDF's.
- To view and print PDF files, you must have Adobe® Acrobat® Reader installed
- The site also publishes documents in Microsoft Word format. We always try to add the size of the Word document to all Word links
To view and print Microsoft Word files, you must either have Word installed on your PC or you can download Microsoft Word Viewer software.
We only use specialist publishing formats such as Shockwave Flash and other media formats requiring third-party plug-ins where they are useful in demonstrating a particular issue. We use other technologies, such as Javascript, appropriately to avoid creating accessibility barriers. We focus on the use of "open" publishing standards, as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium.
Accessible PDFs
Cheshire Fire & Rescue Service uses Adobe Acrobat software to create PDF (Portable Document Format) files.
PDF files can be used by a range of computer systems and are designed with the Internet in mind to make it easier to distribute large, complex documents. You will need the appropriate version of Adobe Acrobat Reader to view, navigate, and print PDF files. Adobe Acrobat Reader is freely available for all major computing platforms.
You can download a copy from the Abode web site.
Adobe web site (opens in new window)
PDF documents may not be readily accessible to screen readers and may not be formatted for visually impaired users. However, the following tools can be used to convert PDF documents into plain text or plain HTML documents. You can translate a PDF into a text only or plain HTML by using a script or sending a file as an attachment.
Adobe Conversion Script Go to the following link, type in the URL of any PDF and the document will be converted into a text only HTML document.
Adobe Conversion Script (opens in new window)
For converting offline documents, you can send your PDF as an e-mail attachment, a converted version of the document will be posted back to you.
HTML version pdf2html@sun.trace.wisc.edu
TEXT version: pdf2txt@adobe.com
An acrobat access plugin is also available from the adobe web site:
Further Information on Accessible PDFs is available on e Adobe web site.
Adobe accessible PDFs (opens in new window)
6. Navigating around the site
The site can be navigated in the following ways: Using the content navigation menu (top yellow navigation bar at the top of every page) to link to the main content sections on the site, such as About Us, Jobs, News & Events.
Alternatively, you can navigate using the global site navigation at the very top of every page (blue navigation bar)using the following links:
- Accessibility - links to this page
- Home - links to the Cheshire Fire & Rescue Service website homepage
- Listen - provides a link to Readspeaker.
- Contact Us - links to contact information for Cheshire Fire & Rescue Service
- Help - links to information on how to get the most out of this website and ways in which this site can help you find the information and facilities you need.
- Site Map - links to the page containing an overview of the website contents.
7. Site map
Some people may prefer to skip the full set of links on our site map
You can choose to have these links abbreviated into a single link to the main A to Z of services page.
8. Contact information
We are constantly working to improve the accessibility features of the Cheshire Fire & Rescue Service, and welcome your suggestions and comments.
If you encounter any accessibility or technical problems when using this site, please contact the Corporate Communications team: email feedback@cheshirefire.gov.uk
We will do our very best to address issues as promptly as we can.
