When text is pasted from Google docs into Canvas, Canvas can introduce unwanted autoformatting such as numbered lists

[BrianLester]

At times posting text form google docs into Canvas results in unwanted numbered lists

[Shar · Accepted solution]

Hello @BrianLester ,

I have found that copy and Paste from any online document - Google docs, Word online - ends up bringing over spurious characters and extra span tags. My workaround is to paste text-only, if you are on a windows machine CTRL+SHIFT+V to get just the text without any of the formatting. I then go through and update the formatting myself with paragraphs, bold, italics, and lists as needed. It's still a pain, but I prefer that to pasting and then selecting all the newly pasted text and clearing the formatting from the RCE toolbar.

I've never seen it do numbered lists on a straight copy and paste, but then again, I try to stay away from straight copy-paste. It could be that your source document has the numbered lists formatting and was altered to not look like numbered list.

Hope the advice helps on pasting text-only,
Cheers - Shar ⭐

[gnoack]

Hi @BrianLester 

You could try first exporting the document from Google Drive as a Word Document, or perhaps an RTF file. Copy/Paste from the downloaded file might work better. 

Otherwise, copy/Paste Text-only, as @Shar suggested is a great option. 

[SusanNiemeyer]

Another way to "clean up" text copied and pasted from another program into Canvas is to use the "clear formatting" option in the RCE.