Blackboard: Paste from Word

First: Why Not Paste Directly from Word?

Directly pasting formatted text from Word can have unpredictable effects in Blackboard. Some of the possible effects include:

• incorrect display of text or formatting problems
• inaccurate scoring or incorrect display of options in tests
• broken links and even non-functional course menus
  

This happens because Word embeds invisible text that can affect the display of text in Blackboard.

Using Paste from Word is not required, but it will make your life easier by avoiding formatting problems if wish to copy and paste text from Word into Blackboard.

How to Use Paste from Word

Paste from Word is easy to use. It works within the editing window in any content in Blackboard that allows you to turn the Editor on.

To use it, you'll only need to do the following:

(1) Create the text in Microsoft Word that you wish to copy

(2) Select the text and copy it using Ctrl+C (or Command+C on Mac OS X)

(3) Enter the text area you wish to copy the text into and click the "Mashup" menu

(4) Select "Paste from Word" from the "Mashup" menu dropdown

(5) A popup window will appear. Paste the text into the popup window and click "Submit" to add the text to Blackboard

Some Important Points

A couple of items to keep in mind when using the Paste from Word feature:

• Most formatting is preserved, including bold, italic, indentations, and bullet points. Color is not preserved, but it can be added within the Blackboard text editor.
• You will need to make sure the Text Editor is set to ON in order to use this feature.

Paste from Word - Video Demo

Click the link below to see a quick video demo of how to do this.

http://screencast.com/t/P1YXrxK7tu (2:52 minute video; opens in a new window)