The Our Water Our Future website is your complete guide to all Victorian Government water information, policy, projects and services. For more information about Our Water Our Future see our About Us page.

Navigating and browsing

You can find what you need on Our Water Our Future by browsing our menu. Across the top of every page you can see a list of subject areas or sections. All information on Our Water Our Future is grouped under these sections.

Hover your mouse over one of the sections and you will see a list of sub-sections that comes underneath it.

Click on a section or sub-section and you will see a new page with information or links to further pages. You will also see a menu on the left-hand side of the page with links to other sub-sections in that subject area, plus a column on the right-hand side with links to news items and other related content.

It is also possible to navigate the website using the keyboard. The tab key can be used to move progressively through links on each page. The first two links on each page are invisible and appear when the tab key is used. The first link is a "Skip to navigation" link that takes you to the menu of subject areas. The second link is a "Skip to content" link that takes you to the page content.

You always know where you are on Our Water Our Future: the main navigation menu at the top of the screen tells you what section you are in and the left-hand menu tells you what sub-section you are browsing. You can also check the breadcrumb trail at the top of the screen, just below the menu.

If you need to return to the homepage simply click on the Our Water Our Future logo or the Home link at the top of the screen.

Searching

You can also find information by using our search engine. At the top right of every page you will find a blue Search box.

To search, type a word or phrase in the Search box and click the "Search" button or just press Enter. A list of matching web pages will display in order of relevance.

Click one of the titles and that website will open in the same browser window.

You can search using just one word, or with several words. Note though that all words you enter will not necessarily be next to each other in the result.

If you want to search for words in the exact order you type them then use quotation marks, for example “water restrictions”. 

Other water websites

At the bottom of every page you can see a list of Other Water websites. Click on the drop-down arrow to choose a website from the list and then click the View Website button. The website will open in the same browser windows.

Please note that these other water websites are outside the Victorian Government’s control and we take no responsibility for the information that may appear on them. For more information see our Disclaimer.

Printing

You can print out any page on the Our Water Our Future website using the Print button that appears just above the right-hand side column (or at the bottom of the homepage).

When you click this button it will open your browser’s printing window. You can then choose your printer to get a hard copy formatted to fit on a printed page.

Emailing a link

Next to the Print button on the right-hand side, or at the bottom of the homepage, you will also see an Email Link button with an envelope icon on it. By clicking on this button you can send a link to the page to an email address.

When you do this you will be asked to enter the email address you’re sending the link to, as well as your own. Please note that this information is only used for the purpose of sending the link. The information is not traded, sold, licensed nor used for marketing purposes. For more detail see our Privacy Policy.

Changing font size

You can change the font size to make Our Water Our Future easier to read. Different browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape, Safari, etc) have different ways of changing font size. For example:

• To increase font size in Internet Explorer 6.0, select from the top menu View - Text size - Larger or View - Text size - Largest.
• To increase font size in Firefox 2.0, select from the top menu View - Text size - Increase

You can also decrease or increase the font size using the ‘a-‘ or ‘a+’ buttons. These buttons appear on every page, next to the Email Link and Print buttons above the right-hand side column (or at the bottom of the homepage). Clicking these buttons has the same effect as using the browser features described above.

Downloads

Access to some files on our site may require the installation of the following free plug-ins and viewers. Icons shown below are used throughout the site to indicate the file format:

Adobe PDF - Adobe PDF is a universal file format that retains all the elements of a printed document as an electronic image that can be viewed, navigated, forwarded to others, or printed exactly as it appears on screen, using the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software. Download Adobe Acrobat Reader

You can also convert most Adobe PDFs to text using Adobe’s free conversion tool. However if you are still having difficulties with PDF, please Contact Us.

Microsoft Word - Links indicated by the Word icon will open the document using the word processing package you have loaded on your computer. With the free Microsoft Word Viewer 97/2000, if you do not have Word you can open and view Word documents within your browser.  Download Microsoft Word Viewer

Microsoft Excel - Links indicated by the Excel icon will open the document if you have Excel installed. With the free Excel Viewer 2003 you can open, view, and print Excel workbooks, even if you don't have Excel installed. You can also copy data from Excel Viewer 2003 to another program. Download Microsoft Excel Viewer

Microsoft PowerPoint - Links indicated by the PowerPoint icon will open as a slideshow if you have PowerPoint installed. With the free PowerPoint Viewer, if you do not have Microsoft PowerPoint you can view PowerPoint 95, 97, 2000, and 2002 presentations. Download Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer

ZIP files - ZIP files are 'archives' used for storing or distributing files and can contain one or more files which are usually compressed to save space. ZIP files make it easy to group files and make transporting and copying these files faster. Links indicated by the ZIP icon will launch an expansion utility if you have one installed. You can download the expansion utility appropriate to your operating system (PC or Mac):
Download WinZip for Windows
Download StuffIt for Macintosh

If you experience problems opening a download file (such as a PDF or Word file), try saving it to your computer before opening:

1. Right-click on the link to display the shortcut menu (or Control+Click on a Mac)
2. Select ‘Save Target As’ from menu (or 'Download link to disk' on a Mac)
3. Browse to the directory where you want to save the file
4. Select ‘Save’
5. Navigate to where you have saved the file and double-click to open.