(Instructors) Canvas PAGES

Question

I'd like to add a PAGE on Modules, rather than a FILE because it's easier to Edit a PAGE.

BUT, when I copy/paste a Word document into a PAGE, the formatting is all wonky: spaces, indents and colors are gone .

Is there a way to use a PAGE but keep the formatting as it is already on a Word Document?

Chris_Hofer · Accepted Answer

@jfarrel2 ...

(FYI ... it's not necessary to capitalize all the letters in PAGE.)

BUT, when I copy/paste a Word document into a PAGE, the formatting is all wonky: spaces, indents and colors are gone .

You've actually identified the main issue that occurs when pasting content from Microsoft Word into Canvas.  This is a common issue that happens...in that when content is copy/pasted from Word into Canvas, there's a lot of rogue HTML code that can come along with it.  Sometimes, it's so much code that, as you've described, things don't appear like you had intended, and the amount of time you'd have to spend fixing things isn't worth it.

There are online websites that have tools that can help you convert and clean up the HTML code...but there's no guarantee that your page will still look the way you want.

* Convert Word Documents to Clean HTML (word2cleanhtml.com)
* Word to HTML - Online Converter and Cleaner - ðªð¼ð¿ð±ðð§ð ð.ð°ð¼ðº (wordhtml.com)

Also, not all HTML is allowed in Canvas, so there may be HTML elements from your Word document that eventually get stripped out and wouldn't display like you had hoped.

* Canvas HTML Editor Allowlist

You could certainly try using one of those Word --> HTML converter websites I've provided above to see the results you might get.  (There are other conversion websites out there, too.)  However, if you're not getting the results you're looking for, it might be easiest to just re-create the content pages directly in Canvas...even though it might take some extra time on your end.  Keep in mind that spacing, indents, etc. (which you also mentioned) won't be the same in Canvas as you are familiar with in Word documents.  My friend, @chriscas, had a great explanation of this a few weeks back in another topic, but I don't remember exactly what he said, so I'll defer to him if he'd like to chime in.

Hopefully this info will be of some help to you.  Let Community members know if you have any questions...thanks!