Help - In N. Ireland

Welcome to Help

This Help section contains information on how to get the most from visiting the Adviceguide website.  You can get to this Help section from the menu bar on the top right on every page of the Adviceguide website.

Select one of the Help topic links below:

• Using the site includes information about the content of Adviceguide.  It also tells you about the different countries where our information applies and explains how to find out what language it has been translated into
• Using Search tells you how to use Adviceguide’s search facility
• Most of our information is web-based but our fact sheets and some other information that we link to is a different format, called a PDF format. If you need help to use PDFs, go to Getting help to use PDFs
• Help with making this site more accessible for you

We welcome feedback about how to improve our websites. Please Contact us with your comments and suggestions. However, we can't give advice about an individual's problems direct from this site. If you have a problem and need further advice, you can get help from your local Citizens Advice bureau.  To find out where this is, and to find out more abut Citizens Advice, go to our website www.citizensadvice.org.uk.

Using the Site

1.  You can always get back to the main home page if you select the CAB logo at the top left hand corner of each screen.

2.  This site covers information for the four countries that make up the UK: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Much of the content applies to all four countries but some applies to one country only. To choose your country, select from the links across the top of the screen.

3.  You can always get back to the home page for a specific country if you click on Home in the top right hand corner of the screen.

4.  To help you get to the information you want as quickly as possible, Adviceguide is organised into four main content categories. These are:

• Your money
• Your family
• Your daily life
• Your rights.

These categories are listed on the left-hand side of the screen.

5.  There are three other ways of finding out what's on the site:

• there's a search facility on the left hand side of the screen. For more information abut searching for information, see Using the search on Adviceguide.
• there's an A to Z index on the left hand of the screen.  You can check out  all the index entries if you go here, and they are grouped to make this easier
• there's a site map which you can get to from the link at the top right of the screen.  The site map is a list of all the pages on the screen.  You can get to any page if you select it in the site map.

6.  Most of our information is produced on web pages. Some information is available in fact sheets which are in a different format (PDF) and looks more like a printed leaflet. To help you check which fact sheets are available, there is a drop down menu on the right hand side of the home page. Choose your topic, then select the red arrow.  For more help with reading and printing PDFs, see Getting help to use PDFs.

7.  We also produce a range of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). To help you check which FAQs are available, there is a drop down menu on the right hand side of the home page. Choose your topic, then press the red arrow.

8.  Some of our information has been translated into other languages. You can find out what's available and in which languages if you select the language information box on the right hand side of the home page. This will take you to the main index page for the translated information.

9.  You can always see where you are at any time by looking at the breadcrumb trail. This shows where you are on the Adviceguide site. You will see the breadcrumb trail at the top right of a page, below the top bar.  Here is an example of a breadcrumb trail:

England > Employment > Age discrimination at work

Using the search on Adviceguide

Starting a search

1. Select the country that you want from the country link at the top of the screen
   
   
2. In the search box, enter a word or phrase that best describes the information that you are looking for. This is called a keyword. You can narrow down your search to a particular topic, such as Benefits but this can sometimes limit the results you get. Example one shows how to search All England for information about maternity benefits. Example two shows you how to search for maternity benefits only in the section called Benefits.
   
   Example 1    Example 2
   
   
3. Finally, select the red arrow to the right to start the search

If you can't find what you want

You can use as few or as many keywords as you like in your search term and for the best results, it's important to choose your keywords wisely. Keep these tips in mind:

• try the obvious first
• use specific words likely to appear on a page with the information you want. For example, if you search for rights at work, you will get hundreds of options but if what you really want is information about whether you can be sacked, you're best to use the word dismissal
• make keywords as specific as possible.
• using capital letters doesn't affect the search.
• plural and singular versions of words are treated separately. A search for benefit will not automatically search for benefits, nor vice-versa. If you want to search for both versions, enter them both as keywords.

In the search box, you can do some extra things to improve the quality of your search:

• Phrase Search: surround your keywords with " (quotation marks) to perform a search for that exact phrase only. For example, a search for "child benefit" will only find pages where that precise phrase exists. On the other hand, a search for child benefit without the quotes will find pages where the words exist in any order spaced all over the page.
• Minus signs: place a - (minus) sign in front of any keyword to make sure that pages shown in results must not contain that keyword. For instance you could search for tax credit - overpayment to make sure you only see pages where overpayment is not mentioned. However be aware that you may be missing out useful tax credit pages by doing this.
• Wildcard searches: an asterisk (*) can be used to match any one or more characters. For example, a search for child* would search for child, children, Child Benefit, Child Tax Credit etc. You can also use the * in the middle of a word.  This could be useful if you're not sure about the spelling. Although using a wildcard may increase the number of search results returned, it can help you to see all the topics related to a word.  You can then do a more limited search using different keywords.

Getting help to use PDFs

Wherever possible, we have used a web page version of information on this website so a screen reader can help you to use the site. However, our fact sheets (and also some other documents that we might link to) are in PDF format.

PDF is short for Portable Document Format and it’s a file format created by Adobe that lets you view and print a file exactly in the way people designed it.

Viewing PDF documents

This format works in a different way from web pages. A PDF file contains the document and this will be displayed on computers with all the original layout and looks. It will also print exactly as it appears on the screen.

You will need the Adobe Acrobat reader to view, navigate around and PDF files. You can download Acrobat Reader for free.

It is also a good idea to have the most up-to-date version of Adobe Reader. Also, Adobe recommend upgrading to the latest version so that you have the newest accessibility features. So remember to check the Adobe website for the latest versions and upgrade if you need to.

Tips on downloading PDF files

• Instead of immediately displaying the downloaded PDF file in Acrobat Reader, you may wish to save the file to disk
• Any file (image, HTML, PDF, text, etc.) on the web is available for downloading to your local hard disk by right-clicking on the link to the file that you wish to download and choosing, for example, "Save Target As" (in Internet Explorer) and specifying where you want to store it on your computer. You can also give the document another name.
• Once you’ve downloaded the file, you can then open it up from your computer – though you’ll still need Adobe Reader to do this.

Printing off PDF documents

To print a PDF document select the print button in the toolbar. You can print the entire document or selected pages.

Some computers may have difficulty in printing PDF documents directly from a website. If you have problems, try saving the file to your computer first. To do this:

• right-click on the link, or tab to the link and press the return key
• choose "Save Target As...".
• choose a place on your computer where you want to save the document.

You can then use Acrobat Reader to open it from its saved location and print it out.

Further help in using PDFs

For more help with using, reading and printing PDFs – including navigating around them and converting them into other formats like Word – go to the PDF User Guide on the RNIB’s website.

Help with making this site more accessible for you

See our Accessibility section for help with:

• using the keys on your computer to get quickly to different sections of the website
• changing the size of the text
• changing colours, font and  mouse settings

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