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Technical Details

This site uses web standards (including Cascading Style Sheets) to control page layouts and other design details. We aim to ensure that the mark-up language we use to structure the content of these pages follows transitional Extensible Hypertext Mark-up Language (XHTML) rules. The site is compatible with past and present Web browsers, and is prepared for future compatibility.

If you would like further assistance please contact the Webmaster.

Plug-ins

To view some content on our site you will need to use a relevant software plug-in or stand-alone application. A plug-in allows you to view a document inside your browser window without having to save the file first.

Below is a list of file formats used on the Ofcom website which may require you to install a plug-in or stand-alone application.

Portable Document Format (PDF)

The most popular PDF viewer is Adobe Acrobat Reader, available as a free download from Adobe's website. Adobe Acrobat Reader version 7 has enhanced accessibility features.

Adobe Systems provides a free translation service through its Access web pages which will translate PDF files to web pages (HTML documents).

This can be used in one of three ways:

1. The user's browser can be configured to use this service as a helper application, so that every time they click on a link to a PDF document, this document is automatically sent to the Access server and returned as a web page.
2. The user can go to the Access.adobe.com server and fill out a form. When this form is submitted, the server will retrieve the PDF document, translate it, and return it to the user.
3. The user can send an e-mail message to the Access server, giving the address of the document to be translated. The server will then get this document and translate it to either a web page or a text (ASCII) document. Note that this is the only one of the three options that also gives the ability to produce a text document from the PDF file.

For systems that are not connected to the Internet, Adobe Access is a free downloadable accessibility plug-in for use with the latest versions of the Adobe Acrobat Reader for Microsoft Windows 3.1, Windows 95, or Windows NT. This plug-in helps to overcome some of the problems of reading PDF documents with screen readers, but for systems with Internet access, Adobe recommends using the forms-based Access translation service instead.

Rich Text Format (RTF)

As an alternative, the material available in PDF format is also made available in rich text format (RTF). If you experience problems opening these documents, please try accessing them using Microsoft Word Viewer (on Windows) or TextEdit (on Mac OS X).

Microsoft Word Viewer (DOC)

Ofcom publish a limited number of douments in Microsoft Word format. However, a large number of legacy documents published by Ofcom’s predecessors are in Microsoft Word format. If you do not have Microsoft Word, a viewer is available for Windows free from Microsoft's website. TextEdit on Mac OS X can open Microsoft Word files.

If you would like further assistance please contact the Webmaster.

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