Text Editor

From CLEW Wiki

CLEW (Sakai) uses a single consistent editor across all areas where text can be input, by students or instructors, that is more than a few lines.

The editor works well with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Apple's Safari web browser is not supported (the editor simply is not presented, but unformatted text can be added), and Google Chrome users may experience some issues also as a few have been reported.

Contents 1 Copy and Paste 1.1 Insert formatted text copied from a Microsoft Word document 1.1.1 Text Editor: Copy and Paste Options and Explanations 2 Add a Link 3 Using the WYSIWYG editor 4 Upload an image 4.1 Browser considerations 5 Keyboard Shortcuts 6 Increase the size of the Edit window 7 Known Issues 7.1 Spell Check 7.1.1 Internet Explorer - 3rd Party Software Option

Copy and Paste

Are you getting strange characters, extra code when you paste content into the text editor or other inconsistent formatting?
If you are seeing upside down question marks or code like (<o:p> </o:p><o:p></o:p>) appearing at the beginning and between the paragraphs of your pasted content, chances are, you haven't used the "Paste from Word" feature available in the editor. There is extra code that accompanies the text pasted into the browser editor when coming from MS Word, that isn't visible to you, but is visible to the computer program language that needs to process the text. In order to remove that code, it will get "scrubbed" by pasting into another window that cleans up the text before it gets inserted. See below to find out a quick and easy way to solve those problems.

Insert formatted text copied from a Microsoft Word document

Copy the material from MS Word that you would like inserted in the CLEW Text editor. Put your cursor into the CLEW text box. As this material now exists on your clipboard (after using the "Copy" function in Word, or ctrl + C) the Paste from Word icon now becomes active (no longer greyed out). Click the Paste from Word icon , place your cursor in the subsequent Paste from Word text box, and then press Ctrl + V, to paste your copied text. Using Ctrl + V to paste is the best method for preserving the formatting of the original Word document. Click OK to add the text to the item you are composing.

The WYSIWYG editor is based on an open-source application called FCKeditor. To see what each icon in the toolbar does, refer to the Toolbar page in the FCKeditor Users Guide.

Text Editor: Copy and Paste Options and Explanations

When you copy and paste from MS Word directly into the Text Editor, it carries over the stylesheets from Word, which could cause some problems with Text Editor’s predefined styles.

There are several solutions to this:

• The Text Editor has a “Paste as Plain Text” option. It’s the button with a clipboard and a letter “T”. After copying the text in MS Word, go to Text Editor and click the Paste as Plain Text button, and a window pops up. Paste the text into this popup window and click OK, and the text will be pasted into wherever your cursor is as Normal text (as defined by the Text Editor).

• The Text Editor also has a “Paste from Word” option. Click this button and you get a popup window. Copy and paste from MS Word into this window. You’ll notice that all the styles carry over from Word.

• There are two checkboxes below the text area in this popup window: Ignore Font Face definitions and Remove Styles definitions. Some recommend that Ignore Font Face definitions is left checked as this will change whatever font you used in MS Word (e.g. Times New Roman, Arial, etc.) to the predefined font for the Web site. You may need to adjust pasted text using the CLEW editor to get text to look the way you want it.

• If you leave “Remove Styles definitions” unchecked, it will allow you to preserve all the style changes you had made to the text in MS Word, such as bold, italicize, and underline. This would save you the trouble of having to redo them all after pasting into Text Editor.

Please note that the paste options launch new windows that may be blocked by your web browser. Please be attentive to this, and if you need help allowing pop ups please check out how to manage this with your particular browser by searching on Google.

Add a Link

Using the WYSIWYG editor

In certain tools, you can control the graphical appearance of your text using the WYSIWYG editor. The WYSIWYG toolbar has icons for editing and styling your text.

Note: Pasting text from Microsoft Word directly into the WYSIWYG editor may result in garbled output, even if the text appears correct in the editor. Instead, to insert formatted text from a Word document, click the Paste from Word icon, place your cursor in the subsequent "Paste from Word" text box, and then press Ctrl + V, to paste your copied text. Using Ctrl + V to paste is the best method for preserving the formatting of the original Word document. Click OK to add the text to the item you are composing. The WYSIWYG editor is based on an open-source application called FCKeditor. To see what each icon in the toolbar does, refer to the Toolbar page in the FCKeditor Users Guide.

Upload an image

1. Press the image button (the one with two mountains).
2. You can then enter the URL of an image on the Internet, or select the "Browse Server" button.
3. Once presented with the server browsing window options you can select image you have already uploaded or upload a file at that point by selecting "Browse" at the bottom of that window and upload a file from your computer.
   It's generally better to have the image pre-sized/scaled for display in Sakai.
4. Select the image you uploaded.
5. Press "OK" in the remaining windows.

Open the Server Browser

Browse a Server for an Image

Browser considerations

Some browsers work better with CLEW than others. Please make sure you are using one of the supported web browsers (see inset at right).
To ensure that the WYSIWYG editor appears and functions properly, you must use a supported browser.

Keyboard Shortcuts

• CTRL+A highlights the whole editing area
• CTRL+B changes your font to bold.
• CTRL+C copies the highlighted area to the clipboard.
• CTRL+I changes your font to italic.
• CTRL+L opens the Link window.
• CTRL+SHIFT+S saves the document.
• CTRL+U changes your font to underlined.
• CTRL+V or SHIFT+INSERT pastes the data from the clipboard
• CTRL+X or SHIFT+DELETE cuts the highlighted area.
• CTRL+Y or CTRL+SHIFT+Z starts the redo function.
• CTRL+Z starts the undo function.
• CTRL+ALT+ENTER fits the editor in the browsers window.
• CTRL+TAB shows the source code (for advanc

More information can be found at the FCKEditor's help site.

Increase the size of the Edit window

Click inside the edit window and hit CTRL+ALT+ENTER. To return the window to its normal size, click inside the edit window and hit CTRL+ALT+ENTER again.

Known Issues

Spell Check

The built-in spell checkers in Apple Safari and Google Chrome work, however with Firefox and Internet Explorer you have to click the "Source" button and find the spelling mistakes within the HTML markup.

Internet Explorer - 3rd Party Software Option

If you choose to follow these instructions please consider the potential impact this tool may have on your security and privacy.

1. Go to the ieSpell website at: http://www.iespell.com/download.php
2. Click on one of the download now! and proceeed through the rest of the download steps.
3. When the installation has completed, restart your browser (if it is open).

Activating the Spell Check Tool

1. The first time you use the spell checker in CLEW / Sakai, you will be prompted to complete the installation.
   • An alert banner will appear at the bottom of your browser's toolbar indicating that the ieSpell Core Module needs to be installed.
   • Click on the alert banner to complete the installation.
   • When the dropdown menu appears, you sould select Run ActiveX Control and click the Run button.
2. The spell check tool will now operate when you click on the spell check button!