[ARCHIVED] Blank student pdf submissions in app, but not in Safari

[DrKMnO4]

I’m an instructor, and I just purchased an iPad (iPad Air, 4th generation) to be able to write directly on students’ pdf submissions. The issue I have is with viewing said submissions, which are fillable pdfs.

When I use Canvas in Safari, I can open a student’s submission in SpeedGrader and their work shows up. Attempting to use the Apple Pencil to grade in Safari has been nearly impossible, so I decided to use the Canvas Teacher app.

When I navigate to a student’s submission in the app, the pdf that previously had work in it now appears blank. It isn’t just one student, it’s all of my students. Photos show up with no problem, it’s just pdfs. How can I get the Canvas Teacher app to properly display the completed pdfs?

[mwmakins]

I came here with the same problem. I create forms in Acrobat for my students to fill out and I would like to be able to annotate them in the Canvas Teacher app, but they show up blank. (Most will display OK in the Safari browser, but as the OP said, it’s almost impossible to annotate them with my Apple Pencil. Some only display properly in Chrome on my laptop.) Is this problem being investigated? Please say yes, because this is a major reason why I bought the iPad in the first place. 😞

[DrKMnO4]

I also bought my iPad primarily to grade things like fillable pdfs. I ended up contacting Canvas Support, and learned that the Canvas Teacher app can't read multi-layer pdfs. I was told that they are working on a fix, but that was 2 months ago. When I checked yesterday it still wasn't working. They didn't give me a timeframe on when I could expect a resolution, though I hope it's coming.

[davidjb2008]

Is there any workaround for using the Canvas app on a 1st or 2nd generation iPad Air? (running iOS 12.5)??
Please help!

[angela_vanbrugg]

one of my staff has this same issue - but i do not - with the same generation of iPad. Any ideas on what is causing this issue? Marking up pdfs on Speedgrader through a browser is very cumbersome!

[KristinL]

Hi!

Are your students using the same submission type? Support for Student Annotations (vs. File Uploads) is different. Support for Student Annotations in Canvas Teacher was added in v 1.14. Make sure that both of you are running the most updated version of the Teacher app.

There is also a Known Issue --  which could be impacting your workflow.