Repairs Handbook Repairs Reporting Guide Handy Hints Gadgets Guide Tenancy Handbook Tenancy DVD E-books Leaseholders Handbook Think Safety for Housing Think Safety for Schools
Effective Repairs Reporting.
All text and layout designs of our handbooks conform to RNIB readability guidance. This means that they are accessible for the majority of the reading population,including those with some sight impairment.
All text is presented in Arial font, unless you request us to use some other font. Arial is regarded as a very accessible font. Whatever font we use, the text will be presented in a minimum point size of 12.
You may be concerned about other aspects of accessibility :
If you would like to talk through your options for providing the handbooks in alternative formats and in other languages, please contact us.
We have written all our text in clear, straightforward English and believe that you can be confident that your customers will find them easy to understand. We will also provide you with an editing guide to help you with writing any changes/additions you want to make to the text. In this way, the tone of the book will remain consistent.
We have followed quite a few of the generally recognised recommendations of such organisations as The Plain Language Commission or the Plain English Campaign. However, we will not necessarily have conformed to all their criteria.
If you are keen to have official approval from either of these organisations, we suggest you contact them directly. We suggest you do this early on in the project schedule.
Plain Language Commission: www.clearest.co.uk
Plain English Campaign: www.plainenglish.co.uk
Our experience is that the Plain Language Commission have quite a 'light' touch which makes it quite easy to take on board the changes they suggest. The Plain English Campaign on the other hand are more 'strict' which leads to a high level of changes and submission of additional drafts. We will reserve the right to make additional charges if we have to undertake a much higher level of editing than we would normally expect.
We can arrange production of your handbooks in large print. As this usually involves small quantities, we will usually do this in-house as and when you have requests for them.
The process is quite straight forward for A5 size handbooks, we do not change the layout but just increase the page size to A4. This provides a font size of about point 17. We also strip out any colour shading. We then print the pages on card and the binding will be a comb binder. If much larger numbers are required (for example 200 or more) we would consider sending it to our printers. Large print is more difficult when the original books in A4 size.
We do not commission the conversion of our handbooks into these embossed systems for the blind. You need to approach professional transcription services. However, we are happy to provide the handbook text in the format that is required by the transcribers.
We offer conversion of your handbook to an attractive interactive on-line e-book. This conforms to AA web-standards which means that it will function effectively with most disability browsers and therefore becomes accessible on line to people who can not read conventional print easily, or at all. Find out more about our e-handbooks
If you just need to have a pdf of the book for display on your website or for submission to auditors, we are happy to provide this for you. This will be a read-only pdf.
We do not commission the recording of our handbooks onto tape or CD. You need to approach organisations that specialise in carrying out such services for blind or partially sighted people. We suggest you enquire locally for volunteer organisations in your area, such as RNIB or Age Concern.
We have been told that the clear sectioning and cross-referencing of our handbooks make them particularly suitable for making good recordings.
We can arrange translation. This is usually a few introductory lines in the predominant second languages of your customer base. We position these on the first page or the back outside cover. We often suggest that you also translate the book title.
Translating is costly and so you need to weigh up what your approach will be. We would warn you against saying that the whole book can be made available in another language. This may be affordable for a leaflet but for a 52 page book this incurs high translation costs and also re-typesetting and proofing costs.
We would suggest that you put at the front of the book a statement that says something like; "This book is about our repairs service. If English is not your first language and you would like to talk to someone in your own language or you want to have parts of this book explained or translated, please contact us on 01234 56789."