How this area works

About this site: how to use it

Please read this page to understand how to make the best use of the liturgy pages of this site. Unlike the rest of the site, the liturgical pages have their own style and design. As a result, you may need to be aware of the differences in order to achieve what you want.

Display settings
If possible, your computer should be set to display at least 256 colours, and a resolution of at least 800 x 600 pixels. (The site should also work reasonably at 640 x 480 pixels.)

Navigation
Each page of liturgical texts has a menu bar at the top, which enables you to return to reach any of the sections by selecting from the drop-down list. You can also return to the Common Worship front page or the Church of England home page by selecting either of the first two links in the menu bar.

Text size and fonts
If the text appears too large or too small, please use the browser controls available to you in your browser to change the default size.

The site is designed to be viewed in a sans-serif font, preferably the Verdana font, or if this is not available, either Arial or Helvetica. We have chosen not to use Gill Sans for the web site, because this font is not available on most personal computers. The page layouts are based generally upon the book design and follow the same principles, adapted to the medium of the web.

Most of the pages use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and will display best in a web browser that understands this method. Internet Explorer 5 should work well, and Internet Explorer 4 almost as well. Netscape 4.x browsers will work much less well, although we have tried to overcome some of the problems there. Earlier versions of both IE and Netscape will not recognise CSS at all. We would recommend that if possible you upgrade to the latest version of your preferred browser.

If your browser is not CSS-aware, then you will not see the fonts as intended, the rubrics and certain headings will not be in colour, and in other cases the headings will not be right justified on the page as intended. At present some headings will also not appear in bold face, although we hope to rectify this soon.

Copying and pasting and related matters
This site was designed primarily in order to make it easy to access and read the texts online. However, we are conscious of the fact that many people need access to texts that can be used in their own word processing or DTP software in order to produce local orders of service or other materials.

With the vast range of web browsing, word-processing and desktop publishing software that is now available, it is impossible to design a web site that not only looks good onscreen for most users but that also converts easily into usable text, while still retaining essential formatting. There are simply too many variable factors. To help a variety of users meet a variety of needs, the Common Worship texts have been made available in three separate formats - .rtf and .pdf files which can be downloaded and regular HTML, which is the code used to display normal web pages. We recommend that you use either .rtf or .pdf files when trying to create your own service sheets.

Working with HTML web pages
If you decide you wish to use HTML web pages to copy and paste material, please follow these instructions. The range of word processing and dtp software available makes it impossible for us to offer a definitive guide to the quickest ways to extract usable texts from the web pages. However, as the majority of users seem to be trying to copy and paste into Microsoft Word, here are some brief instructions for this particular software package.

Method One: Choose SELECT ALL from your web browser's EDIT menu (Netscape and IE), and then choose COPY. Then PASTE into Word. You will get not only the text but also the table gridlines that have been used to lay out the texts. If you are happy using tables within Word this can actually be useful, as it allows you very good control over positioning of headings and the "All"s. Bold and italic formatting will be retained.

If, however, you wish to remove the gridlines because, for example, you are hoping to use the text within a program that cannot import the table format successfully, then you should follow these further instructions.

Once you have pasted your text into Word, go to TABLE, then SELECT TABLE, so that the entire table is highlighted. Then go back to TABLE again and choose CONVERT TABLE TO TEXT. This will remove the gridlines.

Method Two: As above, choose SELECT ALL, then COPY from within your web browser. Then go into Word. Go to the EDIT menu, then choose PASTE SPECIAL and choose the option to paste in as UNFORMATTED text. You will lose all bold and italic formatting, but this method does also immediately remove the table gridlines. Text produced in this way should be usable within any other program, especially if you first save it as a .txt or .rtf file.

Credits
The liturgical text pages of this web site were designed and built by Simon Sarmiento for Church House Publishing.

Thanks to David Green, Ian Keeling, Colin Bullen, Simon Kershaw and Mark Adams for their assistance.

Contact details

Church House Publishing
Church House
Great Smith Street
London
SW1P 3NZ

Tel: 020 7898 1451
Email: publishing@c-of-e.org.uk