Blackboard 9.1 Quick Start Guide

Paste From Word Tool

Have you ever had a Word document with the content all formatted the way you want it to appear? Complete with tables, heading styles, bold text, etc? If the Word text is pasted into Blackboard, sometime it will displays correctly and other times the text will cause various undesired results.

The issue is that when formatting content in Word, there’s a lot of formatting code embedded in the document. When this formatted text is copied from Word the hidden code is also copied. That’s great if you’re pasting into a different Word document, but the Blackboard text editor already contains a lot of functionality, and it also applies it’s own coding to make the formatted text appear as you have intended. The effect of two different programs each attempting to format your text is generally to insert additional coding that at times creates test display issues.

To address this issue we have installed the "Paste from Word" tool that allows you to copy content from Word, paste it into the text editor in Blackboard 9.1 and have all the Microsoft Word code stripped out and replaced with correct HTML code.

The following will narrative will step you through using the "Paste from Word" tool.

  1. Navigate to the area where the Word text will be added and place your pointer in the text block where the text will be placed. over the Build Content tab.
  2. Click on the Add Mashup icon . The Mashup menu will be displayed.
  3. Click on the Paste from Word link. The Paste your Word text here window will be displayed.
  4. If you are using Internet Explorer click on the Paste from Word Icon . (If prompted click on the [Allow Access] button in the popup window.)
  5. If you are using Firefox or Safari click in the text box and paste the Word text in the window.
  6. Click the [Submit] button to have the text pasted into the Blackboard text editor.

A version of your Word text will now appear in the text window. Check the content to assure that the Word formatting was retained, and then click on the [Submit] button to save the data.

Educational Technologies, JPGM 2011 / 1