Creating and editing pages

Pages are a powerful tool that enable you to create and display course content. The advantage of pages – as opposed to simply providing direct access to uploaded files – is that pages can be interactive and incorporate assets such as rich media. They can also include links to other course activities or pages in Canvas to enable better organisation of learning materials and easier navigation for students.

Further information on the new rich content editor (RCE):

Review the Canvas Community Guide Links to an external site.
Watch the Canvas video on the RCE Links to an external site.
Read the Canvas blog (+video) on the drag and drop features in the RCE Links to an external site.
Peruse this animation (click on a question mark to see an explanation of that option): Options within the Rich Content Editor Links to an external site.

1. Creating pages

Pages are easy to create from within your structured pathway of modules:

To add a page to an existing module, click the Modules tool on the Course Navigation menu.
Then click the '+' icon in the module to which you wish to add a page.
Then, in the window that opens up, choose Page from the menu of options.
You can either create a new page, or link to an existing one stored in the Pages tool.

Tips to consider when creating pages

Give your page a meaningful title so that a person reading it will understand it intuitively. Rather than creating a short title such as 'Focus' choose something that coveys a useful meaning such as 'Focus on profitable and growing markets'.
For accessibility reasons, use tables only to display tabular data, not to arrange page layout – the latter can be achieved by using <div> and/or <float> tags.
If you have copied and pasted content from a Word document, ensure to use the Clear formatting option from the toolbar (or Format menu) to avoid inconsistent formatting.
Paragraph tags and Header tags are available within both the rich text editor and HTML editor and should used to better structure page content. There are three important things to remember when using headings (from the www .w3.org Links to an external site. website):
- “There are six levels of headings in HTML with H1 as the most important and H6 as the least.”
- “The six heading elements, H1 through H6 [2, 3 and 4 are available in the Canvas Rich Text Editor, H1 is automatically assigned to the page title ], denote section headings."
- Although the order and occurrence of headings are not constrained in Canvas, documents should not skip levels (for example, from H1 to H3), as converting such documents to other representations is often problematic.”

2. Editing pages

When editing pages in Canvas, a basic range of formatting is available within the Rich Content Editor (RCE). This allows you to easily make basic edits and format content on your page.
In addition, there are options to insert embedded multimedia and existing course content into the body of your course. You may upload new items (including pasting and drag 'n drop of files), or browse existing course content by clicking the down arrow alongside an option (e.g. links, images, media, documents). If you select the 'Course' option it will display a side panel on the right-hand side of the screen. This allows you to easily select and insert existing materials without first having to go and find their links.

For particular files types (or 'All files'), a Search box appears on the Add panel, enabling you to browse the course folders and search within them for the item you would like to add to the page:

The same Search facility is available when you elect to Add a link to other materials within the course:

When adding new links, images or other elements the Link Options menu allows you to determine the preview type:

preview in overlay (file preview opens and overlays the entire page); or
preview inline (displays the preview directly in the Rich Content Editor window once the file is clicked);
- if you select the option to Expand the preview by Default, the file is automatically expanded in the page without the need to click the file to view it.

* The following functionality to facilitate the insertion of content is newly released (Feb 2023) *

The RCE supports the pasting and drag and drop of content. You can:

Copy and paste an image from a browser or photo viewing app
Copy an image, audio, or video file from a file system directory viewer such as the macOS Finder or Windows File Explorer and paste it in the RCE
Drag a file from your local file system and drop it into the RCE

If an image or other file requires you to specify its usage rights, the File Upload dialogue box displays to select usage rights before uploading and displaying in the RCE. When dragging and dropping an image from the web, an HTML IMG tag referencing the file at its location on the web will be inserted into the RCE. This may or may not display the image for other users, depending on the public visibility of the source image.

The screenshot shows pasting an image from the clipboard, and dragging and dropping a file into the RCE on a page.

3. Inserting a Table of Contents

If your page is rather long, you may wish to generate a Table of Contents based on heading styles (similar to what can be done in a Word document). First edit your Canvas page and apply suitable heading styles to the main headings and sub-headings. Then save the page.

Now edit the page again and select the 'plug-in' icon from the tool bar. Select Table of Contents (if it does not appear, click on View All).

You will see a preview of the page, showing the Table of Contents. Click Options to specify if you want to display a 'Back to Top' link on the right of each section, and whether or not you want the Table of Contents to be collapsible:

When you are happy with your options and the preview, click Insert.

The Table of Contents will be automatically generated at the top of the page, enhancing navigation of the content:

'Table of Contents' can be renamed to a more suitable name, if you prefer, e.g. 'Index'. Simply edit the wording within the rich content editor.
If you update the headings (eg change the order or wording), you can re-run the tool and click the Update button. This will update the existing Table of Contents
(it won’t insert another table).

4. Embedding Panopto and Teams items

Apps are available from the Apps part of the ribbon. Note that Panopto and MS Teams are directly available for you to insert those items into your page, as required.

Please refer to our pages on Panopto integration and MS Teams integration for step-by-step details on using these apps.

5. More features of the editor

If you need to troubleshoot layout issues and have a basic knowledge of HTML, you can toggle in and out of the HTML Editor to view and edit the source code:

The options on the lower right of the screen are: show keyboard shortcuts; use the accessibility checker; toggle in/out of HTML source code; and view as full screen.
Use the accessibility checker to check for accessibility issues in the page that you have created. The icon for this is: – simply click the icon and then investigate any issues that require attention.

Most options on the editing ribbon are also available from the Menu Bar at the top of the editor window.

6. Scheduling page publication

Teachers or course administrators can delay pages for publication at a specific date and time. This allows you to prepare pages in advance, for automatic publication when you need to release the information to students.

Click on a page title to edit it, and then click the Edit button. The Options window will appear:

Specify the required date (1) and time (2) for the page to be automatically published.

Click Save.

In Modules and Pages, teachers and administrators will be able to see the scheduled date and time, but the page will remain invisible to students until then.

7. Tracking page edits

Each page contains a history of edits (like a wiki) and it is possible to restore a page to an earlier version. You can therefore always reverse any changes you make to your pages. This can be performed by pressing the button on the right-hand side of the page next to the Edit button and selecting View page history from the options. You can then choose an option to restore an earlier page version.

restoring page

You can view all the pages in your course by clicking on the Pages tab on the left-hand Course Navigation menu and then selecting the View all pages button. Your pages will always appear in a linear list that is alphabetically ordered; this order cannot be changed.

Use a page in your sandpit to practise using the full range of options within the Rich Content Editor.
Use headings to break up your text to enable students (and screen readers) to read your content more easily.
Remember that you can always hyperlink to content held in external web pages by highlighting a word or phrase then selecting the 'Link to URL' icon in the editor window.