What is the best workflow to upload a Office document in RTF to canvas that will hold the format?

[smhense]

Good Morning, I am a student with Santa Barbara City College RHIT program. I am unsure if there have been updates. In the past, I was able to work in Office and use tools like formatting and insert smart tools etc. In a very recent assignment, the ask was to create an Affinity Diagram which is very easy in Office, I saved in RTF which is the teacher expectations, my format nor colors etc did not upload. 

I understand Canvas is using Google Docs, is there any apps or settings that could convert a word document into a google doc or a easy workflow that the community uses to convert student ( mine) knowledge to create beautiful and Level Grade A documents. Most assignments need to be uploaded and not worked within the submit assignment work area as there is no save your work before submitting.

There other students in my class that would benefit from any recommendations or assistance. 😊

[EvanDonovan]

I think that an RTF document could be downloaded from the SpeedGrader. It might just be that the preview window in the SpeedGrader doesn't convert it to something that is viewable with all the formatting.

So faculty just need to be educated to download assignments if they want to see them with all the formatting.

[smhense]

The problem is the assignment is a group discussion and a set of approx 12 users need to be able to view each others submission.

[nwilson7 · Accepted solution]

@smhense Does the file need to be an RTF or are other options allowed?  RTF strips many things out of the document so that it can be compatible with other word processors.  It is really meant for basic word processing and not something with lots of graphics, details, or smart objects.  

You mention Canvas and Google Docs.  Canvas is not "using Google Docs", if you see this ability within Canvas, this means your school has integrated Google Docs with Canvas.  Schools can choose to integrate lots of tools with Canvas.  For example, mine has integrated Google Docs and Microsoft (along with over 30 other tools).  I am guessing that if you are seeing Google Docs as an option that your school has become a Google school so you have access to log in to the Google suite of tools.  You can upload Word files directly to Google Drive and if you want, you can then convert them to Google Docs.  For the most part, they convert pretty well but you may notice changes in fonts or margins depending on how you have them set.  Google docs is also a great tool on its own.  If you have access to it, you can do all the designing of your documents directly in Google Docs and it is more than capable of grade A work. This would save you from doing it first in Word and then having to convert it.

Google also allows for you to be collaborative so you can share a document directly with the other 12 users and you can all work on the same document.

Hope this helps but if not, feel free to reach back out!

-Nick

[WatsonWork]

The RTF doesn't always correctly support all embedded objects. If not supported they get dropped off the document. 

-Gareth