Welcome to help
The help section contains information on how to get the most from visiting the Citizens Advice website. Select one of the help topic links below.
Help can be accessed from the menu bar on the top right on every page of the Citizens Advice website.
For accessibility help see the site accessibility guidelines section, which covers details on ‘accesskeys’, and how to adjust your browser, mouse and keyboard settings.
For additional help, please contact us
Using the site
Site structure
The site covers information about the Citizens Advice service in England and Wales. However, it also includes a UK-wide directory of local CAB (Find a CAB) and the opportunity to find out more about becoming a CAB volunteer throughout the UK. Specific information about Citizens Advice Scotland can be found at www.cas.org.uk and Citizens Advice in Northern Ireland at www.citizensadvice.co.uk.
The main navigation is organised under the heading ‘On this site’ into the main content areas:
- About us
- Get advice
- Campaigning for change
- Volunteer
- Support us
- Job opportunities
- Publications
- Press office
as listed on the left-hand side of the screen.
Page structure
The page structure of the site stays the same throughout the site and has the following features:
- the CAB logo in the top left hand corner, which is a link back to the home page
- the main site tools (accessibility, help, site map, contact us) at the top right of the page
- links to the different content areas on the left-hand side
- the search facility on the left.
Navigating Citizens Advice website
Your starting point when entering Citizens Advice website depends on how you arrived at the website. For example if you came from a search engine link, this would usually take you to the home page of the site; or if you had bookmarked one of the content areas, then that would be your starting point. Or you may have got to the Citizens Advice website via a link from another website to a particular page or section.
All text links are dark blue and underlined. When you move your mouse cursor over a link (known as ‘rolling over'), the text will change to red. As soon as you click on a text link and view the content, the link will change to light blue. This way, you can always tell which sections you have looked at and which not.
As you browse through the content, a breadcrumb trail will appear above the page’s main heading and will indicate where you are in the site from the home page. For example, >Home>Volunteer>Volunteer form will be seen on the Volunteer form page. Selecting a link from the breadcrumb trail will take you to that page.
Note: If you are not sure whether something is a link, move the cursor over a word; if it's a link, the cursor will change from an arrow to a hand with the finger extended.
Printing web pages
The main content of this website can be printed in a printer-friendly format. To print a page in printer-friendly format select the printer image  at the top right of the web page.
Viewer downloads
You may need to access content on the Citizens Advice website that requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to view. You will need to download this software from the Internet and install it prior to viewing content in this format.
Adobe Acrobat Reader is free software that lets you view and print Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files on all major computer platforms, as well as fill in and submit Adobe PDF forms online. An expanded version of Acrobat Reader for Windows offers additional functionality, including support for the visually impaired and the ability to search a collection of Adobe PDF files. To obtain Adobe Acrobat Reader select:  www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
You may also require access to Microsoft Office packages such as Word, Excel and Powerpoint. To download free versions of any of these software packages please visit: http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/
To download any of the above software, please follow the instructions given on the relevant website.
Flash video content
Viewing content
You may need to access content on the Citizens Advice website that requires Adobe Flash Player to view. You can download this freely available browser plug-in prior to viewing the content from; http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash
Content load time
Content load time may become slower as more users access the Citizens Advice website, therefore we recommend letting the video buffer (pause the video to allow it to temporarily hold data while it is being moved from our server to your web browser) for a few minutes before playing it.
Should the video fail to load, it may have been removed or the link broken, in which case, please contact the webteam.
To download the above software, please follow the instructions given on the relevant website.
Video controls
- Play / Pause - Pressing this button allows you to play and pause the content.
- Stop / Previous / Next - The stop button will stop the video, pressing the either the previous or next button will move the progess bar to its respective end.
- Progession - Once the video is fully loaded you can drag the progession bar in either direction to a specific time within the video.
- Volume Control - The volume icon allows you to enable or disable the sound, while dragging the bar will allow you to increase or decrease the volume.
- Full Screen - Pressing this button will cause the video to fit the size of your screen, pressing this button once in full screen will return the video to its normal size.
- Caption / Subtitle - By default captions will be turn on, you can click this button on order to remove caption or restore it.
Using search
Starting a search
In the search text box, enter a word or phrase that best describes the information you are looking for and select the red arrow to the right to enable the search
Or for a more selective search
From the pull-down menu below the search text box select one of the content areas
Again select the red arrow to the right to enable the search
Interpreting search results
When your search is completed, the results screen will show up to 10 matching documents. If there are more than 10, a link at the top and bottom of the list allows you to move to the next screen, with the next 10 in the sequence, until you reach the end of the search results.
The search results will look something like the example below, giving you
- the number of documents located, and how many web pages (in the example below, there are 496 matching documents, displayed on 10 web pages)
- the documents listed in order of relevance to the word or phrase that you search on the higher the percentage, the more relevant
- a summary of the contents of each document.
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