Important Notice: Our web hosting provider recently started charging us for additional visits, which was unexpected. In response, we're seeking donations. Depending on the situation, we may explore different monetization options for our Community and Expert Contributors. It's crucial to provide more returns for their expertise and offer more Expert Validated Answers or AI Validated Answers. Learn more about our hosting issue here.

When I copy and paste text from Microsoft Word into Blackboard, all my quotes and em dashes get turned into question marks. How do I fix that?

April 26, 2017Blackboard copy dashes em Microsoft paste quotes text turned word

0

Posted

When I copy and paste text from Microsoft Word into Blackboard, all my quotes and em dashes get turned into question marks. How do I fix that?

1 Answer

0

Posted

The problem probably has to do with Microsoft’s so-called “smart” quotes. Microsoft automatically converts standard straight quotation marks (“, ‘) into angled “smart” quotes. This works great in MS Word…but looks terrible on the Web. Make sure to turn off smart quotes when creating text intended for Blackboard! Here’s how: 1. In Microsoft Word, go to “Tools–>Autocorrect Options–>AutoFormat As You Type” 2. Uncheck “Straight quotes” with “smart quotes” 3. While you’re at it, uncheck “Hyphens (–) with dash” which is another source of irritation. Unfortunately, this fix doesn’t convert previous documents embedded with “smart” quotes. These will have to be fixed by hand…or via search & replace. Please note that this *does not* apply to Word documents that have been *uploaded* into Blackboard. “Smart” quotes only affects text copied and pasted into Blackboard. Click here to view a demonstration.