Keyboard Control

Your web browser provides methods of navigating web pages and accessing the browser’s controls without the use of a mouse. This site should not conflict with these keyboard controls in any way.

Common Keyboard Controls

Most web browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome, use a common set of keyboard shortcuts and controls:

  • Page Down and Page Up or Space and Shift+Space - Scroll the page down or up by one screen
  • Down Arrow and Up Arrow - Scroll the page down or up by one line
  • Tab and Shift+Tab - Navigate and give focus to the next or previous link, form field or form control
  • Enter - Visit the selected link, choose the selected menu item (in form drop downs) or submit the current form
  • Home and End - Skip to the start or end of the web page
  • Alt+Left Arrow and Alt+Right Arrow or Backspace and Shift+Backspace - Go back or forward one page (in Browser History)
  • F5 - Reload the page
  • Esc - Close any open dialog box or form drop down or stop the page currently loading
  • F6 or Alt+D - Give focus to the browser’s address bar (or back to the web page)

Opera Keyboard Controls

The Opera web browser provides a different set keyboard controls allowing non-linear navigation between links:

  • Page Down and Page Up or Space and Shift+Space - Scroll the page down or up by one screen
  • Down Arrow and Up Arrow - Scroll the page down or up by one line
  • Shift+Down, Shift+Up, Shift+Left, and Shift+Right - Spatially navigate to the next link or form field in that direction
  • Tab and Shift+Tab - Navigate and give focus to the next form field (F9 to restore focus to the page)
  • Enter - Visit the selected link (Shift+Enter opens in a new tab) or submit the current form
  • Home and End - Skip to the start or end of the web page
  • Alt+Left Arrow and Alt+Right Arrow or Backspace and Shift+Backspace - Go back or forward one page (in Browser History)
  • F5 or Ctrl+R - Reload the page
  • Esc - Close any open dialog box or stop the currently loading page
  • F8 - Give focus to the browser’s address bar
  • F9 - Give focus to the web page (from the address bar or a form field)

NB, on Apple Mac computers the Command key should be used in the place of Ctrl.

Text Resizing

Web browsers provide controls to enlarge or reduce the text size or zoom level of web pages. This site has been designed to ensure these browser controls will work with the site’s text, even on older browsers, and so that text will remain readable and will not be overlapped or truncated even when increased to twice the default size.

Browser Controls

Your web browser should provide controls to either change the size of the text on the web page or zoom the entire page including any text. These are usually accessed via the main menu bar (at the top of the window), under ‘View’. Resizing controls are usually under a sub-heading ‘Zoom’ or ‘Text Size’ or are controlled by items such as ‘Make Text Bigger’ and ‘Make Text Larger’.

Keyboard Shortcuts

There will likely also be keyboard shortcuts provided by your browser. Most commonly these are Ctrl++ (The Ctrl key or Command on a Mac held down at the same time as the plus or equals key) to increase the text size or zoom level, Ctrl+- to reduce the size and Ctrl+0 to reset the size or zoom level back to default. On the Opera browser, + on the numpad or keyboard increases the zoom level, - reduces the zoom level and * resets it to default.

Most browsers also allow resizing to be controlled by holding down the Ctrl (or Command) key and scrolling the mouse-wheel up or down.