Canvas Update Incoming: New Rich Content Editor

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Canvas is introducing a new look to its Rich Content Editor, the text editor you use in places like pages, assignment descriptions, and announcements. This update keeps all the same functionality as before – it just has a different process to accomplish those tasks while adding some cool timesaving features.  

Let’s start out by mentioning the biggest difference – the links panel has been removed, and all those items are now folded into the toolbar at the top of the editor.  

There are two different menus above the text box – the Rich Content Editor Menu Bar is on top and contains the items in text-based menu drop-downs, and the Rich Content Editor Toolbar displays the items in a “ribbon” format with icons. Please note that the screenshot above was taken with my browser window at full screen – if you have your window smaller, some of these items may be hidden behind a “three dots see more” button.  

We’re going to focus on the Rich Content Editor Toolbar to start! 

Rich Content Editor Toolbar 

Paragraph and text formatting

The first two blocks of items in the toolbar are what you’ll use to change the formatting for both entire paragraphs as well as sections of text. The first block before the vertical line is your paragraph styles – here you can change the font size and paragraph style (paragraphs, headings, etc). The second block after the vertical line is all your text styles – bold, italics, underlining, sub/superscripts. 

Canvas now allows you to change text color or set highlighting, but we do not recommend you take advantage of those features. Stick to using bold or italics to distinguish content as much as possible. Using colored text or highlighting can make your text difficult to read because of contrast issues or color blindness.  

Inserting content or links 

The next block in your toolbar helps you add links or content. Clicking the arrow next to an item gives you a drop-down menu with the option to add a link to an external item or an item inside of Canvas. When you choose to add a course link, course media, or course documents, Canvas slides an “Add” tray from the right side of the screen that displays current course content. Click on an item in the list to add it to the editor. The coolest and most helpful feature in this new tray is the search bar – you can now type in a term and Canvas will filter all the items in your course to only include the ones that match the term. This has greatly helped me when I’m building courses – it’s so much faster to find the specific items I want, especially since I can leave the same search term in the box and toggle through the different categories of course links. 

Adding external tools 

In the external tools section, the icon for Ensemble is first in the list, which provides you with easy access to all your videos. The “plug” icon holds the rest of the external tools available to you – simply click it, then click “view all” to see the rest of the tools.  

Page formatting 

This section holds the overall page formatting tools. With these buttons, you can change your text alignment, add bulleted or numbered lists, and indent content.  

Tables, equations, and embedding content 

The final section is dedicated to the remaining features that needed to be on the toolbar but didn’t smoothly fit into the previous categories. With these, you can remove formatting, add a table, add equations, or add an embed code for some content. 

Rich Content Editor Menu Bar 

The Rich Content Editor Menu Bar (the text-based menu above the icons) contains the same features as the Toolbar, but there are a few items there that aren’t included in the Toolbar. The “edit” menu includes the shortcuts for copying or pasting text, and the “insert” menu includes a shortcut for adding a horizontal line to help divide content. 

For more information about the updates to the Rich Content Editor, check out Canvas’s New Rich Content Editor documentation and instructor guide, the Rich Content Editor feature comparison, and the New Rich Content Editor video tutorial.  

The New Rich Content Editor will be live in Canvas starting December 17, 2020. However, if you want to start using it before then, you can turn it on in individual courses. Simply open a course and go to the settings page. Click the “Feature Options” tab, then toggle on “RCE Enhancements.” You’ll now be able to use the New Rich Content Editor everywhere it’s located in Canvas.  

If you have questions, we’d love to help you out! Drop them in the comments on this post or send us an email at ctl@cedarville.edu. 

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