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Accessibility and usability

Centrelink is committed to improving the accessibility and usability of our website information for all Australians, including those with a disability or with technical limitations.

The Centrelink website has been designed to work well across the majority of popular browsers. Download times are minimised as much as possible to assist rural customers and others with limited bandwidth capabilities.

Centrelink is committed to ensuring everyone has access to Centrelink payments and services regardless of their disability, illness, injury or caring responsibilities. Refer to the services for people with a disability page for more information on how we support this commitment.

Alternative formats for publications

Information affecting customers with a disability, illness or injury is available in alternative formats. These formats include audio cassette/CD, large print, braille, and e-text. Centrelink can also provide information products in other formats upon request.

If there is information you require that you cannot access, please send us a secure online message to the Centrelink Feedback mailbox and we will try to provide the information to you in a different form.

Using a screen reader with PDF files

We provide lots of information in Portable Document Format (PDF). These documents contain both text and pictures that cannot be changed and appear the same way each time. A PDF file name always ends in .pdf.

Some screen reading devices have difficulties with PDF files. The Adobe accessibility website provides a number of tools that can help you use screen readers to read the content of PDF documents. These tools work by converting the documents to text readable by screen readers. These tools are free and most require no downloading of files.

For more information about using assistive technology with Adobe Reader, please refer to the Adobe accessibility resource centre.

Readspeaker (text-to-speech)

ReadSpeaker implements text-to-speech for the Centrelink website. To use ReadSpeaker click the  listen  icon at the top of the page. A new window will open, which will play the main contents of the page back to you as audio. You can even try it on this page. You can select the text you want to hear or listen to the whole page.

Not all pages are suitable for ReadSpeaker so the icon may not appear on all of them.

Refer to the ReadSpeaker page for more information.


Navigating with a keyboard

If you are not using a mouse to navigate on the website, you can navigate on the keyboard by using the alt key and arrow keys:

  • to select a link, use the tab and enter
  • to go back, press the alt and left arrow
  • to browse forward, press the alt and right arrow.

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Changing font colours

Did you know that you can change your font colours to suit your own needs? Not everyone can view all colours well - some colours are clearer for people than others. Web browsers let you change the font or text colour settings to make it easier to read a web page. You may find it easier to read the information on our site by changing the font colours in your web browser to suit your needs.

Note: Changing your font colours in this way will affect all web pages you visit, not just our website.

Microsoft Internet Explorer

  1. Click on Tools menu item located at the top of the browser window.
  2. From the drop down list select Internet Options to bring up the Internet Options window.
  3. Click on the Accessibility button located in the bottom right of this window. This will bring up the Accessibility window.
  4. To change the font colours to your preferred colours place a tick in the box next to Ignore colours specified on web pages.
  5. Once you have done this click OK to close the window. Now you are able to set your own font colours.
  6. To change your colours, click on the Colours button in the Internet Options window.
  7. This will bring up the Colours window where you can select the colours that are most suitable for your needs. You can change the colours of both text and links to make them easier to read.

Mozilla Firefox

  1. Click on the Tools menu located in the menu bar and select Options.
  2. Select the Content tab and select the Colours button located under Fonts & Colours.
  3. In the Colours window you can select your own colours by clicking on the colour and selecting a more suitable colour for you from the list available.
  4. When you have selected your own colours, un-tick the Allow pages to choose their own colours, instead of my selects above option and click OK button.

Other browsers

Please refer to your browser's help for instructions.

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Changing font size

Do you find the text on our site too small for you to read? You may find that changing the font or text size in your web browser will make it easier to read the information on our site.

Note: Changing your font size in this way will affect all web pages you visit, not just our website.

Microsoft Internet Explorer

  1. Click on View located in the menu bar at the top of the window.
  2. From the sub-menu select Text Size to open another sub-menu from which you can select your desired font size.
  3. Experiment with the different font sizes until you find one that best suits you.

Mozilla Firefox

  1. Click on View located in the menu bar at the top of the window.
  2. From the Zoom sub-menu you can change how a page is zoomed depending on the Zoom Text Only option:
    • ticked - only the font size will change when you select zoom in or out
    • un-ticked - the whole page, including images, layout and other items will increase
  3. Experiment with increasing and decreasing the zoom until you find a font size that best suits you.

Other browsers

Please refer to your browser's help for instructions.

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Changing font style

Did you know that you can change your font or text style to suit your own needs? Some font styles are clearer than others, so web browsers let you change this setting so that it makes it easier to read a web page. You may find it easier to read the information on our site by by changing the font style in your web browser to suit your needs.

Note: Changes made to your font style in this way will affect all web pages you visit, not just our website.

Microsoft Internet Explorer

  1. Click on Tools located in the menu bar at the top of the window.
  2. From the sub-menu select Internet Options to bring up the Internet Options window.
  3. Click on the Accessibility button located in the bottom right of this window. This will bring up the Accessibility window.
  4. To change the font style to your preferred style place a tick in the box next to Ignore font styles specified on web pages.
  5. Once you have done click OK to close the window. Now you are able to set your own font style.
  6. To change your font style, click on the Fonts button in the Accessibility window.
  7. This will bring up the Fonts window where you can select the font that is most suitable for your needs.

Mozilla Firefox

  1. Click on the Tools menu located in the menu bar and select Options.
  2. Select the Content tab and select the Advanced button located under Fonts & Colours.
  3. In the Fonts window you can select a new Proportional font face and size.
  4. When you have selected your own font style, un-tick the Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of my selects above option and click OK button.

Other browsers

Please refer to your browser's help for instructions.

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Comments and suggestions

We welcome your suggestions and comments about our site's accessibility and usability. Please send us a secure online message to the Website Feedback mailbox.

More information

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Did you find what you were looking for? You can also try the A to Z list, quick links, search, site help, we speak your language or send us feedback on how to make this a better website.

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