About Text Components#

Text components are the basic building blocks of your course content. You use Text components to add and format text, links, images, and more. You can work with your Text components in a “visual” or WYSIWYG editor that hides the HTML code details, or in a “raw” editor that requires you to mark up your content.

Note

Review Developing Your Course and Use Best Practices for HTML Markup before you start working with Text components.

Options for Editing Text Components#

You can use two different editing interfaces to work with a Text component.

  • The Visual Editor

    With the visual editor you create, edit, and format content in a word processing-like interface, without using HTML markup directly. With the visual editor, you can more easily format your content, and add links and images.

    The visual editor includes an HTML option for you to review the HTML markup and make small formatting changes to your content. However, this HTML option does not provide the detailed control you can get with the raw HTML editor, nor does it support custom formatting or scripts.

    If you add a Text component and select Text, when you select Edit the visual editor opens by default.

  • The Raw HTML Editor

    If you prefer to mark up your content directly with HTML markup, you can use the raw HTML editor. If you need to include custom formatting or scripts in your content, you must use the raw HTML editor.

    If you add a Text component and select Raw HTML, when you select Edit the raw HTML editor opens by default.

    There is no way to switch between the Visual Editor and the Raw HTML editor once one is selected.

Note

If you copy text from another source and paste it into either the visual or raw HTML editor, be sure to proofread the result carefully. Some applications automatically change quotation marks and apostrophes from the “straight” version to the “smart” or “curly” version. Both editors require “straight” quotation marks and apostrophes.

The Visual Editor#

The visual editor provides a “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) interface that allows you to format text by selecting options at the top of the editor.

The following image shows callouts for the editing options and is followed by descriptions.

An image of the visual editor toolbar, with numbers next to each of the formatting buttons.
  1. Arrows that perform undo/redo actions.

  2. Select a formatting style for the selected text, such as paragraph, preformatted (monospace), or a heading level.

    Note

    The available heading levels in the Text component editor begin with heading 2 (<h2>). Text components are part of a complete page, and elements outside the Text component use heading level 1 by default. Because tools such as screen readers use heading levels to navigate through pages, using heading level 1 inside a Text component can interfere with the functionality of these tools.

  3. Format the selected text in bold, or remove this formatting. The editor inserts <strong> tags around the selected text.

  4. Format the selected text in italics, or remove this formatting. The editor inserts <em> tags around the selected text.

  5. Underline the selected text, or remove this formatting. The editor encloses the selected text in the tag <span style="text-decoration: underline;">.

  6. Change the color of the selected text. The editor encloses the selected text in the tag <span style="color: color-hex-code;">.

  7. Change the background color of the selected text. The editor encloses the selected text in the tag <span style="background-color: color-hex-code;">.

  8. Align text and images to the left. The editor adds style="text-align: left;" to the <p> tags that surround the text.

  9. Center text and images. The editor adds style="text-align: center;" to the <p> tags that surround the text.

  10. Align text and images to the right. The editor adds style="text-align: right;" to the <p> tags that surround the text.

  11. Justify text and images. The editor adds style="text-align: justify;" to the <p> tags that surround the text.

  12. Create a bulleted list, or remove this formatting. The editor inserts <ul> tags around the selected text, and encloses each paragraph in <li> tags.

  13. Create a numbered list, or remove this formatting. The editor inserts <ol> tags around the selected text, and encloses each paragraph in <li> tags.

  14. Decrease and increase the indentation of the selected paragraph.

  15. Insert an image at the cursor. For more information, see Add an Image to a Text Component.

  16. Create a hypertext link from the selected text. For more information, see Add a Link in a Text Component.

  17. Remove a hypertext link from the selected text.

  18. Format the selected paragraph as a blockquote. The editor inserts <blockquote> tags around the selected text, which is then displayed as a separate indented paragraph.

  19. Format the selected text as a code block, or remove this formatting. The editor inserts <code> tags around the selected text, which is then displayed in a monospace font.

  20. The table toolbar icon lets you drop in a table component and selecting a given cell lets you create, remove, or adjust rows and columns.

  21. You can easily add emoticons to your text content. This can be a way to break up long stretches of content.

  22. We have introduced a way to to include special characters into your text content, including mathematical and symbolic elements.

  23. Inject a horizontal line in the highlighted content.

  24. Clear formatting button which removes all font formatting from the selected text. This does not remove paragraph formatting (e.g. blockquote).

  25. Review the HTML markup.

  26. Accessibility Checker, which allows you to check HTML in the editor for various accessibility problems. For more information, see Accessibility Checker.

Note

The visual editor is not available for course handouts.