By controlling the display options in your browser, you can improve the readability of many of the Web sites that you visit.

The instructions for Netscape Navigator may vary somewhat depending on which version your system is running. If you don’t know what version of Netscape you are using, open your Netscape Navigator browser and click on “Help” in the top menu bar and then choose “About Navigator.”

Changing Fonts

You can specify which fonts and font sizes are used to display web pages in your browser. You can also select character-set encodings.
  1. Open the “Edit” menu by selecting it in the top menu bar and then choose “Preferences.”
  2. Expand the “Appearance” group by clicking the “+” symbol and select the “Fonts” category.
  3. Choose an encoding to tell the computer which types of letters and symbols to use.
  4. Choose your default fonts from the “Variable Width Font” and “Fixed Width Font” pop-up menus. (Fixed-width fonts are often used for filling in forms.)
  5. Select an option under the heading “Sometimes a document will provide its own fonts.”

    1. To specify that your default fonts are always used instead of the fonts chosen by a Web site's author, click “Use my default fonts, overriding document-specified fonts.” This option guarantees fonts you can read, but may impact the layout of the web page.

    2. To accept the Web site author's recommended fonts only when they are available without downloading, click “Use document-specified fonts, but disable Dynamic Fonts.” This option will display your default fonts except when the Web site author's recommended font happens to already be on your system.

    3. To accept the Web site author's recommended fonts in all cases, click “Use document-specified fonts, including Dynamic Fonts.” This option will display your default fonts except where the Web site author recommends a specific font.

If you view web pages in more than one character set (for instance, Western and Chinese), you can choose fonts and font sizes for each encoding scheme.

Changing Text Colors or Backgrounds

  1. Open the “Edit” menu by selecting it in the top menu bar and choose “Preferences.”
  2. Expand the “Appearance” group by clicking on the “+” symbol and select the “Colors” category.
  3. Click a color button to change colors of text, background, unvisited links, or visited links. The most important part of this step is selecting text and link colors that contrast well with the background color that you select.
  4. Make other adjustments to the “Preferences” section as desired:

    1. Select “Use Windows colors” (“Use default colors” on Mac OS and Unix) to restore the original colors.

    2. Select “Underline links” to make links easier to find.

    3. Select “Always use my colors, overriding document” to override the color and background settings recommended by the author of the Web site.

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This site is made possible through the generous support of Pfizer.