[ARCHIVED] Copy/Paste - Words Missing

[leonora_villart]

Over the last few months our team has been noticing missing words, or words being randomly cut out when copying pasting from Word to the RCE.  We're trying to narrow down the issue.  But it seems that it happens whenever there is one word at the end of a sentence, preceded by a link, and in a bulleted list (see example below).   

We'd have to manually audit any time we copy paste to ensure no loss of text and add them back in when they get cut out. The current workaround is to copy/paste in and out of either Google Docs or OneNote; which for some reason doesn't cut out out the words and allows us to keep them when copying and pasting them into the RCE.

Any help would be appreciated as this basic function is draining on time and introduces more room for errors.

Thanks in advance

Example

Red text is what gets cut out at after copy/paste

Original Word Text

• Must be two to three double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center’s APA Formatting for Microsoft Word resource.
• Must document any information used from sources in APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center’s APA: Citing Within Your Paper guide.
• Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center. See the APA: Formatting Your References List resource in the Writing Center for specifications.
•  

Copy/Pasted Word Text in RCE

• Must be [number] to [number] double-spaced [pages or slides] in length (not including title and references [pages or slides]) and formatted according to APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center’s APA Formatting for Microsoft Word
• Must document any information used from sources in APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center’s APA: Citing Within Your Paper
• Must include a separate references [page or slide] that is formatted according to APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center. See the APA: Formatting Your References List resource in the Writing Center for specifications.

[mlpoole]

I have noticed when I copy and paste a bulleted list, if the list has a line that starts with Ch then the chapter number, the Ch is always dropped.  If I type out the word Chapter, it is retained.

Example:  

• Ch 1 SmartBook Assignment
• Ch 2 SmartBook Assignment
• Ch 1&2 Lecture Assignment
• Chapter 1&2 Lecture Quiz
• Lab 1:  Lab Safety & quiz

This would paste over as:

• 1 SmartBook Assignment
•  2 SmartBook Assignment
•  Ch 1&2 Lecture Assignment
•  Chapter 1&2 Lecture Quiz
• Lab 1:  Lab Safety & quiz

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello @leonora_villart and @mlpoole ...

Have you tried converting your Word documents to PDFs and then copy/paste the text from that to Canvas?  Copying and pasting from Word to Canvas can sometimes do so pretty funky stuff and insert some rogue HTML code in your pages that is unwanted.  So, converting those files first to PDF might help a bit.  Give that a try, and let us know if it works for you...thanks!

[leonora_villart]

We would like to keep formatting and links.  When we copy/paste over from pdf into the canvas we lose the links and some formatting, which in itself creates more work.  Any other suggestions or solutions?  Is this a known issue?

[CathyZupke]

I have experienced the same problem and I tried opening the document in LibreOffice and doing the copy/paste from there.  I think it worked better although in some circumstances an extra flag looking character gets inserted at the beginning (the HTML is:  <a name="_Hlk57815224"></a>).  I haven't figured out why that happens and if there is a way to avoid it.