Help
Downloading files
You will need a PDF reader in order to view the PDF files available on this website. You can download this software free of charge from the following website:
http://www.adobe.com/de/products/reader/
Not all of the documents available for download are fully accessible to people with disabilities . Many of the files are copies of old documents where the original is no longer available. These files have not been retroactively revised.
We intend in future to offer fully accessible PDF files, or to provide the content in HTML format as an alternative, as far as this is both possible and practical.
You can tell if a document is already accessible by placing the cursor over the file download link to see whether it is marked as “accessible” (for partially accessible files) or “fully accessible”.
Should you require content from older documents in a different format that is more accessible for you, please contact us via the contact form. We will try to make the content available to you by other means if at all possible.
Navigation
The pages of our website have a uniform structure which separates navigational functions from content.
At the very top of each page, there are hidden links that allow you to jump directly to the various sections of the site, including the content, main menu and search function.
Additionally, the sitemap gives you an overview of all the topics and subtopics available on our website.
Text size
You can change the size of the text on our website using your browser settings. In Internet Explorer, you can change the settings by clicking on the “View” menu and then selecting “Text Size”. If you use Firefox, you can change the text size by clicking on the “View” menu, then “Zoom”, and then selecting “Zoom In” or “Zoom Out”.
Search
We provide two types of search on our website: simple search and advanced search.
The box for the simple search is located at the top right of the page above the navigation menu . Simply enter one or more terms in the search box and hit Enter. The search results are then displayed on a new page .
The advanced search function provides you with additional options for carrying out searches or filtering the search results. You can:
- sort the results by relevance or by date
limit the search results to:
- – a particular time period
- – a particular document type (for example, you can specify that you want to search for a particular person, job offers or general articles)
- – a specific subject
You can limit the search by adding a + symbol (which functions as an AND operator) between search terms in the search field.
You can search using wildcards such as an asterisk (*), which stands for any sequence of characters, or a question mark (?), which stands for any single character.
You can also add the tilde symbol (~) to the end of a word to carry out a fuzzy search.
Print function
The contents of this website are optimized for printing.
If JavaScript is activated in your browser, you will see a “Print Page” icon at the foot of the page. Clicking on the icon opens a print dialogue box.
If you have JavaScript deactivated, you can print a page by opening the “File” menu and then selecting “Print”. You can also open the print dialogue box using the keystroke command Ctrl+P.
Miscellaneous
We have taken great pains to ensure that, as far as possible, this website complies with German guidelines on making information technology accessible to people with disabilities (Informationstechnik-Verordnung, BITV). Should you nevertheless find non-accessible content on our website, please notify us via the contact form, including a description of the problem and where you encountered it.