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Age UK is the new force combining Age Concern England and
Help the Aged in England.
The new force combining &
You may have plenty of your own ideas for helping older people to make the most of the internet, but here are six suggestions for you to consider.
Up until a few months ago actor and presenter Linda Robson hadn't ever turned on a computer. Here she talks about how she overcame her online fears and how she now uses the internet to keep in touch with her friends and family.
You can set up a page of Buttons which link to sites and services the person you're helping may find useful or enjoyable. It simplifies the internet and makes it easy to revisit places.
Create a page of internet buttons
Another great way you can help one of the 6m older people who aren't online is by donating an old or unwanted PC. The proceeds of your donation will directly support Age UK’s vital work to help train older technology novices to use computers to experience the benefits offered by today’s modern technology.
Donate a PC
Find out whether there are organisations running computer training courses for older people near you by clicking on the map on the right-hand side of this page. If there are, why not contact them to see how you could help out?
Age UK is part of a UK wide drive to recruit Digital Champions to support people of all ages and backgrounds to get online. There are many organisations and companies involved in this campaign with thousands of Digital Champions already active in local communities. For more information about what you can do as a Digital Champion, extra resources and tools to help you help others, or to sign up to be part of the national Digital Champion network, go to the GO-ON Digital Champions page.
GO-ON Digital Champions
Set your location to see what Age UK offers in your local area.
If you've got an old PC at home, donate it at one of our shops and we can get an older person online for the first time.
A practical guide to getting online.
Invaluable tips about how to stay safe while you're browsing the net.
A simple guide to buying a computer for beginners.
If you're new to the internet, start here.
Downloads
A download is a document (like a research report, a leaflet, or an application form) that can be transferred from our website to your computer. You can download a file, view it on your screen, print it, or save it to your computer.
PDF stands for ‘portable document format’.
Most downloads on this website are PDFs. We use this format to ensure that the document looks the same on everyone’s computer (website pages, by contrast, appear differently depending on how people have set their computer up).
Computers use a program called Adobe Acrobat Reader to download PDFs. If you try clicking on a link to download a PDF and it doesn’t work, you will need to install Adobe Acrobat Reader onto your computer.
The process is quite straightforward and is free.
PDFs cannot be changed. If you need to be able to type into a downloaded document (for example, if we are offering a letter template that you need to put your name on) we will provide it as a Microsoft Word document rather than a PDF. You can then download it, type into it and save it to your computer.
Downloads will open on your computer in a new browser window.
Inside this window (below all your web browser menus), there will be a toolbar with options for you to print or save the document.
Close the browser window to return to the Age UK website.
We have made every effort to make our PDFs accessible to screen readers. Here is an overview of your accessibility options available in Acrobat Reader. Please ensure that you have downloaded the latest version of Acrobat Reader from the Adobe Reader website to ensure that they are included in your version of the programme.
You can use Adobe Reader to read a PDF out loud with the following shortcut keys:
You can also convert a PDF into a web page by following these steps:
You can convert a PDF document into a text file for use with other software and hardware such as Braille printers by opening the PDF and choosing ‘Save as text’ from the File menu.
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