Quick Tips IMPROVE Series, Part 4: Rich Content Editor Overview
Welcome back to Part 4 of our IMPROVE series. We’re on to the letter R in our IMPROVE acronym, which stands for Rich Content Editor (RCE).
So far, we’ve created a modular course structure and begun creating individual Pages to house our content. Now it’s finally time to start adding the text, files, links, images, videos, and more that make up your online course content.
What is the Rich Content Editor (RCE)?
Simply put, the Rich Content Editor is the big textbox with all the buttons that you see all through Canvas.
For instructors, the Rich Content Editor can be found in all the following places:
- Pages
- Assignments
- Discussions
- Classic Quizzes
- New Quizzes
- Announcements
- Syllabus
Add and Format Text
To add text in the RCE, you can type it in, or you can paste text from Word or another source.
Once you’ve added text, then you can use the formatting tools in the RCE to provide structure and organization to your text. Generally, you can access the same features from either the menu bar or the toolbar, but there are a few items that are only available through the menu bar (for instance, inserting a horizontal line).
Note: If you cannot see all the buttons in the toolbar, click the kebab (three dots) button to the far right and the rest of the toolbar will be displayed.
Text Formatting Tools
The tools related to text formatting in the RCE toolbar are (1) size, (2) styles, (3) emphasis, (4) color, (5) highlighting, (6) subscript/superscript, (7) alignment, (8) lists, (9) indentation, (10) clear formatting, (11) tables, and (12) math equation editor.
For a complete guide of how to use all the text formatting tools available, check out this Canvas Guide: Add and Modify Text in the Rich Content Editor
For now, we’re going to highlight just a few of the tools that we think are the most important for well-organized and structured page content:
- Styles (2)
Styles allow us to create page structure by breaking down our text into sections and labeling those sections with appropriate headings. Adding structure to our pages makes them much easier to read and understand by visually signaling the hierarchical organization of the content. It also makes the page accessible for those who may be using assistive technology like screen readers.
Use Heading 1 to label each main section or topic within a page, and then use Heading 2 and so on to label subtopics within the main sections.
- Lists (8)
Another important way to visually break up text (and improve accessibility) is to use proper list formatting. Canvas includes options for bulleted, numbered, and alphabetic lists.
- Clear Formatting (10)
When you copy and paste text into the RCE from another source, sometimes the formatting doesn’t translate properly. When this happens, select the text (you can use CTRL+A to select all text) and click on the Clear Formatting button. This will strip out any text size, emphasis, bullets or numbering, alignment, etc., giving you plain text that you can now re-format as desired within the RCE.
It takes some practice to get used to working with all the RCE tools, but the time you spend will pay off in the long run by improving your students’ experience in your Canvas courses.