Using Your Keyboard as an Alternative to Your Mouse - Accesskeys

Using accesskey shortcuts to navigate bbc.co.uk pages and My Web My Way website

Access keys are special web shortcut keys

Introduction

Access keys are essentially keyboard shortcuts on a website that give a keyboard or screen-reader user quick and easy access to all the main areas of the site.

If you are using Windows pressing the ' Alt ' key in combination with the access key will highlight that link on the page, you then press ' Enter ' to select that link.

If you are using a Mac pressing the ' Ctrl ' key in combination with the access key will automatically send you to that specific page.

The following are the access keys across all BBC sites:

' Alt ' + ' 0 ' - link to access keys documentation.
' Alt ' + ' 1 ' - link to bbc.co.uk homepage (www.bbc.co.uk/).
' Alt ' + ' 2 ' - 'Skip to main content' link.
' Alt ' + ' 3 ' - Link to sitemap (a-z index at www.bbc.co.uk/a-z/).
' Alt ' + ' 4 ' - link to search (places cursor in the search form box at the top of the page).

The following are the access keys used on this site:

' Alt ' + ' 5 ' - My Web Homepage.
' Alt ' + ' 6 ' - Windows section homepage.
' Alt ' + ' 7 ' - Mac section homepage.
' Alt ' + ' 8 ' - Linux section homepage.
' Alt ' + ' 9 ' - Sitemap.

How to use Access keys in your browser

Browser	What to do
Internet Explorer 5+ (PC)	Hold down the ' Alt ' key, press the number of the Access key, release both keys then press ' Enter '
Internet Explorer 4 (PC)	Hold down the ' Alt ' key and press the number of the Access key
Internet Explorer 5+ (Mac)	Hold down the ' Ctrl ' key and press the number of the Access key
Konqueror (Linux)	Hold down the ' Ctrl ' key and press the number of the Access key
Internet Explorer 4.5 (Mac)	Access keys are not supported
Netscape 6 and earlier (PC and Mac)	Access keys are not supported
Netscape 7 (PC)	Hold down the ' Alt ' key and press the number of the Access key
Firefox, Mozilla (Linux)	Hold down the ' Alt ' key and press the number of the Access key
Firefox, Mozilla (PC)	Hold down the ' Alt ' key and press the number of the Access key
Firefox, Mozilla (Mac)	Hold down the ' Ctrl ' key and press the number of the Access key
Safari and Omniweb (Mac)	Hold down the ' Ctrl ' key and press the number of the Access key
Opera	Hold down the ' Shift ' key and press ' Escape ' , release both keys, then press the number of the Access key

Please note: This table is not exhaustive, your browser may or may not support Access keys.