In Quizzes Next, am I able to upload a document such as a PDF or WORD file as part of the question?

[tdcrow]

I am able to copy and paste text, but I don't see a place to upload a word or pdf file as part of the question.  

[ericwerth]

Hi  @tdcrow .  There are ways to accomplish this, but I don't know of a way to just attach a document.  If the document is an image, you can upload the image and embed this using the upload media icon in the rich content editor.  Provided the document is available online, you could also include a hyperlink to the resource.  It may not fit your needs, but I would probably consider adding the document I wanted to share to my Google Drive account and use the "share" link option in Google to get a URL I could then include in the question stem.  Might this work in your situation?

[Steuard · Accepted solution]

Thanks for confirming here that I wasn't just overlooking a built-in "attach file" option!

I've run into this issue when trying to switch from a traditional quiz (where you can easily include a link to a PDF file) to new quizzes (where I was quite surprised to see you couldn't). I have used a timed quiz as a way to run timed take-home exams: when a student starts the quiz, they are given (e.g.) 2 hours to submit their response, and they can download the PDF of the exam (some will even print it out). When they complete their work, they upload a scan of what they did. It's certainly not truly *secure*, but it at least puts some boundaries on individual student work.

As I've tried to figure out how to fix this for the new quizzes system, I'm actually a little surprised that you've suggested putting the document on a Google Drive or some other external storage location. It seems to me that one could upload a file on Canvas, set to "Only available to students with link", and then use a link to your own Canvas site for this. Am I overlooking any subtleties that would make that less effective? (I like the idea of having the file contained with my Canvas course's access controls.)

(The one issue that I see for my own work on this is that I'm using a blueprint course, and I'll probably need to create the PDF link by hand for each course individually: otherwise, the quiz will presumably link to the blueprint course's version of the file which the students can't see. That's not optimal, but I think it's manageable.)

[ericwerth]

Hi  @tdcrow .  We haven't heard from you in a while so I thought I would check back and see if my earlier response was helpful or if you found another solution to the issue mentioned in your original post. I am going to go ahead and mark this as "assumed answered" for now, but this can be changed if needed and marking the question as assumed answered doesn't prevent continued discussion in the thread.

All the best!

[sandman]

I have the same need.  I want to attach a .pdf document in the instructions of a timed quiz using the New Quiz format, but there does not seem to be an option for this.  It would seem to be an easy fix, but I'm not a programmer.  I absolutely believe this is a big need for many of us.

[lawtonk]

Why hasn't this been fixed yet? You can easily embed pdfs in almost every other aspect of Canvas EXCEPT New Quizzes. Please update as soon as possible.

[murphys_law]

I'll join the chorus: New Quizzes needs this functionality. I have large, complex exam in old quizzes where every question has a text-heavy PDF as its basis. Converting the PDFs to a graphics-file format is not an option (for several reasons I won't go into here). I can't use New Quizzes until it allows embedding PDFs into the question. Canvas: Please fix this!

[FSSimone]

Hi there, we also need the possiblity to add documents like pdfs, .xls, etc. to questions in new quizzes. We use excel sheets with exercises to be done by our students and file upload for subsmissions. Please get it done. 

[zwxq]

This issue has NOT been "solved".  It is unacceptable that this problem came to you (Canvas) 3.5 years ago and it has still not been fixed.   Canvas, please place an HTML entry option on new quizzes ASAP.  Thank you.

[HollyHarkness1]

Seems like this would be an easy fix.