Copy and paste stopped working

[jcrooks]

I was updating some of my canvas pages by copying and pasting from from a MS Word document I had been working on. All of a sudden, Canvas would not allow me to paste. Can you help me correct this?

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hi @jcrooks ...

Copying and pasting from MS Word documents into Canvas can sometimes cause a lot of headaches...particularly because Word can carry over a bunch of what I like to call "rogue" HTML code.  What you might see in Word may not look exactly like you would hope once the page is saved in Canvas.  So, I am just giving you a word of caution when doing this.  Thankfully, there are online Word to HTML cleaners that will help you in this process:

• Convert Word Documents to Clean HTML (word2cleanhtml.com)
• Word to HTML - Online Converter and Cleaner - 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗛𝗧𝗠𝗟.𝗰𝗼𝗺 (wordhtml.com)
• ...or do a search for Word to HTML cleaners

When copying and pasting content, I always use the keyboard shortcuts:

• Ctrl + X = cut
• Ctrl + C = copy
• Ctrl + V = paste

These should work for you...even if you are copying content from Word into Canvas.  Is this what you are doing?

[jcrooks]

Thank you, Chris. The problem stopped as suddenly and mysteriously as it began. I appreciate the tip about Word-to-HTML cleaners. I did notice copied text from Word does go rogue sometimes. I am not in the habit of using the keyboard shortcuts; I tend to use my mouse. Is using the mouse not a good idea?

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi @jcrooks ...

Using the mouse vs. keyboard shortcuts is simply a matter of personal preference.  For me, I am so used to using keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V ... Cut, Copy, Paste respectively), that it just comes naturally for me to use those most of the time instead of right-clicking to get the pop-up menu.