WHAT TO CLICK

Just by using your mouse you can move through sites on the Internet, select menu options, move forward or backward through pages, print items and mark pages for entry in your browses list of favourite sites. But what do you click on to do all this?

Printing pages - To print a web page, simply click on the printer icon (), which should be located on you browses tool bar. A browser is the software you use to look at the Internet. (If a print properties window pops up, just click OK). If you have a printer connected you can practice on this page.

Adding a page to your browses favourites list - Most browses offer the ability to save a page address into your favours list (sometimes referred to as bookmarks). If you want to return to a page later, by saving it in your favourites list you can easily find it again. To save a web page into your favours list, ensure that your mouse pointer is pointing at the web page but not at a specific graphic or picture (as some browses will then bookmark the picture file rather than the whole web page). Press the right mouse button and then select the option to add favourites\add bookmark. Click OK if prompted to do so. You have successfully saved this web page location into your favourites list. (Have a go on this one). To use this later, click on favourites\bookmarks, from the title bar at the top of your browser, look for the page title in the list and click on it. Your browser will automatically connect to it. Please note that it is the page location and not the page itself that is stored, so you will need to be connected to the Internet again, when you want to go back to it.

Using a picture for your PCs wallpaper - The wallpaper is the background image that you see when your PC has been switched on and loaded up. This screen has your program icons on it. If you see picture that you would like to make your computer's wallpaper, point at the picture with your mouse, click on your right mouse button, and then click on the option "set wallpaper". That's all there is to it. Easy isn't it. Lots of people like to customise their PCs in this way. If you would like to practice this you can use the image displayed on the left of this web page, this is suitable for use as wallpaper.

Using links to go to other web pages - Web pages normally contain several links which you can "point and click" on to move to another page. These links can take you to another paragraph on the same page, take you to a completely different website, or, as is most common, take you to another page within the same site. You'll find that sometimes links are graphical images, sometimes they are pictures and sometimes they are underlined or highlighted words. Most web site designers will make sure that their links look like menu options so that you know what is a link and what isn't. For demonstration purposes there are different types of links below. These will only take you back to the top of this page, so its safe for you to have a go.

Page Top

New Windows - Often links to other sites will open the new site in a new browser window, rather than in the same window. If you get a new window but then want to close it, click on the "x" in the top right hand corner of the window (). To make the window change to full screen (maximised) click on the square to the left of the "x". Click the same place to change back. Practice here.

Browser Forward and back - This page has home and next buttons at the page bottom. Your browser will probably have buttons called next and previous or forward and backwards. Unlike the next button at the bottom of this page which moves forward through the logical page order of the site, your browses forward and backward moves you through its history record of the pages you have visited. You could have jumped in and out of odd pages and even across different sites, but the browser remembers each one and lets you go back to them, and then forward again. Be careful, if you have a go, that you don't click any links because if you do that link becomes the top of the history record and you won't be able to use your forward button to return to this page.

Changing the size of text - You may find that the text size displayed on web sites is a bit too small for your eyesight. Using your mouse you can change the way in which your browser displays this text. To change the text size click on the "view" option from the menu bar at the top of your browser, you should then see an option to increase the text size. The exact wording will vary from browser to browser, but have a go, it isn't hard. Make the text larger or smaller to suit your eyesight.