CUSTOMIZING NOTES FOR ACCESSIBILITY

Customizing Notes for Accessibility
Notes has been designed to accommodate people who have physical challenges, such as restricted mobility or limited vision. These are the major accessibility features in Notes:
Notes has many other features that you can customize to fit your individual needs. Click any of these topics:
Settings you can customize in User Preferences

Choose File - Preferences - User Preferences (Macintosh OS X users: Notes - Preferences - User Preferences) to do the following:

Change icon color or size
You can choose an icon color or size that is easier to see.

Click Basics, and then under the "Display Options" section refer to "Icon color scheme" to change color; refer to "Bookmark icon size" to change icon size.

Change default fonts
You can select different fonts for clarity.

Click Basics, and then under the "Display Options" section click the "Default Fonts" button to set your default font.

Select or deselect Show extended accelerators
Extended accelerators offer keyboard methods for operating the bookmarks bar and window tabs. If you have extended accelerators enabled, press and hold ALT to display additional accelerators for each bookmark and window tab. Once you see the extended accelerators displayed on your screen, press the letter or number that corresponds to the area of Notes you want to go to.

Click Basics and refer to "Additional Options."

Select or deselect Textured Workspace or Right double-click closes window
Textured workspace can be deselected to improve screen clarity or to improve access for screen readers. Right double-click offers an alternate way of closing windows in Notes.

Click Basics and refer to "Additional Options."

Enable or disable Java applets, JavaScript, Java access from JavaScript, JavaScript error dialogs, Plugins in Notes Browser, or ActiveX in Notes Browser
Notes supports Java Applets, JavaScript, Plugins, and ActiveX technology. Currently, some of these technologies are not accessible. Depending on which access technology you are using, you may want to disable these features.

Click Basics and refer to "Additional Options."

Use TAB to navigate read-only documents
TAB moves to next unread document until the last unread document is selected. Then it moves to the next navigable object in the next frame. When a document is open in read-mode, TAB navigates to any embedded object such as URLs, database links, and attachments

Click Basics and refer to "Additional Options."

Use Accessibility Keyboard navigation
You can disable the directional arrows and enable TAB to move from field to field within a document in edit mode.

Click Basics and refer to "Additional Options."

Display Window menu
You can choose to display the Window menu in the menu bar, allowing you to move between open documents and databases. If the Window menu option is enabled, extended accelerators for window tabs are disabled, and instead enabled for the Window menu.

Click Basics and refer to "Additional Options."

Set Audible or Visual notification for incoming mail
When you receive a new mail message, Notes can notify you with either a sound or a visual cue.

Click Mail, then General, and under the "When New Mail Arrives" section select or deselect "Play a Sound" or "Show a Popup."

Set your Internet Mail Format or Internet News Format
You can select HTML or plain-text format.

For Internet Mail, click Mail, then Internet, and under the "Sending Internet mail" section refer to "Internet mail format."

For Internet News, click Mail, then Internet, and under the "Posting news messages" section refer to "Internet news format."

Select a specific word processor
Although the editing features in Notes are designed to be accessible, you can also use your own word processor to edit documents.

Click Mail, then General, and under the Configuration section refer to "Alternate memo editor."

Set Notes colors to match your high-contrast scheme (Windows only)
If you have specified one of the Windows high-contrast color schemes (See Windows Help to learn how to enable high-contrast color schemes), you can set Notes to use the same colors in its user interface, views, and documents.

Note The High Contrast options have a default time out of five minutes. If your system is idle for five minutes the settings may change out of High Contrast and back to a default setting.

Click Basics, and then under the "Additional Options" section select "Use System Colors."

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Settings you can customize in Location Preferences

Choose File - Preferences - Location Preferences (Macintosh OS X users: Notes - Preferences - Location Preferences) to do the following:

Choose whether or not Notes should load images
If you are using a screen reader, it may help not to load images. You can turn them off to improve performance.

Click the Advanced tab, and then the Basics tab. In the "Load images" field choose "On request."

Choose a browser other than Notes
When using the World Wide Web, you can use Notes as your browser or use another browser, such as a text-only browser, instead. You must already have your preferred browser installed on your system.

Click the Internet Browser tab, and then select the browser in the "Internet browser" field. If you choose Other, then specify the browser path in the "Internet browser path" field.

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Additional Notes settings

To set your Workspace as your home page
For easier database navigation, you may prefer to set the Notes Workspace, rather than the Notes Welcome Page, to appear when you start Notes. Both the Workspace and the Welcome page are accessible through MSAA. In your bookmarks, open the folder called Databases. Locate and right-click (Macintosh users, CTRL+click) the Workspace bookmark to activate the context-sensitive menu. Select "Set Bookmark as Home Page."

To change font settings in your NOTES.INI file
NOTES.INI is a configuration file, located in your Notes directory, that stores information about your personal Notes installation. If you need to use slightly larger or smaller fonts at all times, close Notes, open your NOTES.INI file, and add the following setting as a new line anywhere in the file:

Display_font_adjustment=n

Here, n is the number of points added to the default size and is a number between -1 and 25. For example, if you want to increase the font size by 3 points, you would type:

Display_font_adjustment=3

Caution Using a value of 4 or higher may result in formatting problems. If you need to use fonts that large, it is best to change your display fonts in Windows, which will affect all the programs on your computer, including Notes. See Setting up Notes for low vision.

Save your NOTES.INI file after you add the new font line, and then re-open Notes.

To enable keyboard navigation of the Bookmark bar
If you have "Show extended accelerators" enabled in User Preferences (which is enabled by default), you can enable keyboard navigation along the Bookmark bar. Press ALT+B to shift focus to the Bookmark bar. For navigation, use the UP and DOWN ARROWS, HOME, END, PAGE UP, and PAGE DOWN. To select a Bookmark icon, press ENTER. To remove focus on a Bookmark icon, press ESC.

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Setting up Notes for low vision

If you have low vision, you can increase the size of fonts displayed in Notes, and you can reduce the use of color and graphics when scheduling a meeting by setting the Scheduler to always open to the Summary view.

Increasing the size of fonts displayed in Notes

You can increase the size of the fonts for the current Notes session only or for future Notes sessions.

To increase font size for this session only
1. In Windows, enable High Contrast mode through your operating system (refer to the operating system's Help for details).

2. In Notes, choose View - Text Size - Largest (increase by four points), Larger (increase by two points), or Restore (back to original font size) to change the size of the Notes display text for documents and views.

To increase font size for future sessions
It is best to change the size of your Notes fonts by changing your display fonts in Windows. (Changing your Windows display fonts affects all programs on your computer.) Refer to Windows Help for more information.

Note In Windows XP, selecting "Large size" in the "DPI setting" list will not have the desired effects in Notes. You must select "Custom setting" and then select the percentage to scale to.

You can also change font size in Notes by adding large font settings to your NOTES.INI file, but doing so may cause formatting problems.

Setting Scheduler to always open to the Summary view

The Scheduler indicates when people are available for a meeting in one of two ways -- a Summary view or a Details view. Details makes use of color and graphics to indicate whether people are available. If you have low vision, you may find it easier to use the Summary view, which is text-based. The Summary view is the default in your Calendar Preferences, but if the default has been changed and you want to reset it, do the following:

1. From the menu, choose Actions - Tools - Preferences.

2. Click the Calendar & To Do tab.

3. Click the Scheduling tab, and then click the "When Adding an Entry to Your Calendar" tab.

4. Under "For new meetings, the Scheduler initially shows," select "Suggested best times for meeting" for the Summary view.

For more information on using the Summary and Details views in Scheduler, see To see when people, rooms, and resources are free for a meeting.

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See Also