This article is part of a series of articles explaining the new features and changes that will be introduced as part of the Blackboard upgrade scheduled for 26-28 July 2013.

The new version of Blackboard has an improved text editor.  The text editor is the toolbar that provides Word-like editing features in some text areas, such as the description fields for content, discussion board posts, email messages and feedback text areas. Text editors allow you to change the colour, font style and size, add bullets and tables, insert images and links, etc. into your text.

Simplified text editor

The text editor has a simplified version which only shows some of the options available at first.  To see the full editor, please click the double-chevron symbol in the top right of the editor.  This will bring down a complete text editor with more options, such as attaching images and files.

Full text editor

Pasting from Word

One of the features of the new text editor is that if you paste from Word documents it should now automatically remove the hidden HTML code that Word adds into the documents which can often cause problems when adjusting the formatting of the copied text.  This means you no longer need to use the ‘Paste from Word’ tool currently available and this option will not exist as a separate piece of functionality after the upgrade.  When you paste from Word into Blackboard it will automatically remove the difficult formatting.  We believe this will help staff with adjusting and formatting text in Blackboard.