Understanding the Rich Content Editor

The Rich Content Editor is the main tool for entering text, images, files, multimedia, and hyperlinks in Canvas, and it appears almost everywhere in the system where users can enter content. You can use it to build content pages, create quiz questions, reply to discussion posts, and more.

The following Canvas features use the Rich Content Editor:

Announcements
Assignments
Discussions
Pages
Quizzes
Syllabus

It has several features you will recognize from desktop word processors like Microsoft Word and online text editors like the one in Blackboard, such as: RCE.jpg.png

Bold, Italic, Underline
Color text, highlight text, remove text formatting
Text alignment
Bulleted lists
Indent and "Outdent"
Numbered Lists
Tables
Hyperlinks
Insert Image
Insert Multimedia
Font Size and Text Formatting

(Don't worry about the buttons we didn't mention. We'll discuss those soon!)

Rich Content Editor's Sidebar: Link Intelligently to Your Course Elements

The sidebar in Canvas' Rich Content Editor helps you link to files, images, and course elements quickly and intelligently.

It makes building content-rich pages easy and intuitive once you understand how it works. Watch this short video to find out how!

The Rich Content Editor Sidebar from Samuel Merritt U Academic Tech on Vimeo.

The Rich Content Editor Sidebar from Samuel Merritt U Academic Tech on Vimeo.

Hands-On: Participate in a Discussion

On the next screen, you will participate in a Discussion. Try out some of what you've learned!

Reply to the main discussion question with a text introduction using the Rich Text Editor
Add a picture, file, or video to your post using the Sidebar
Add a hyperlink to an interesting website that your colleagues might enjoy
Use some of the Rich Content Editor's features to bold, italic, color, and format your text
Reply to another student response