Save Annotations on PDF Files

[esentz]

Teachers share files as assignments or notes with students to use for instruction or assessment purposes. Students are able to access these PDFs and draw, comment, highlight, and write directly on these shared pages. The most recent update to Canvas no longer autosaves their work. For students who need additional time to finish another day or for an assignment/notes that span several days, there is no way for students to annotate their work and save it for use at a later time. For many departments that rely on students annotating, especially mathematics, it makes Canvas useless.

Please add an option for students to "Save" their work after annotating a PDF so that they can later re-open the document and continue working. According to multiple Canvas representatives, this autosave feature was accidental and therefore is a possible addition to the Canvas app.

Comment from Instructure

Thanks to  @esentz ‌ for sharing this idea, and to everyone who has voted and commented on it. Our engineers are aware of this issue and are currently working on a solution, so it’s not necessary to move it forward for Community consideration as an idea. Thanks for your patience.

[stu_jachimiaj]

Good.

[stu_castorc]

Please bring this back and make my life better!!!!!!!

[stu_sergeante]

#SaveAnnotations

[stu_walkerl1]

During long labs and difficult assignments, it is super stressful and annoying to lose all my work over and over again. It is affecting my grade in my class so please bring a save option to this. 

[stu_descheppl]

Please bring this feature back!

[stantzm]

As a teacher, this is feature of students being able to edit on the pdfs and have it save is beyond invaluable. It allows them to come back to work and finish it later, to edit documents that they need to correct, and so much more. It is not something that is trivial for students (or teachers) but something that benefits all students, no matter how much or how little they use the canvas student app. On a side note, being able to edit in the browser would be a great addition as well! Thank you in advance from myself and my students who are anxiously awaiting the return of this feature!

[pengdah]

I have a dream, that we can have a canvas that allows us to save documents on the application.

I have a dream, that we can edit documents freely.

I have a dream, that canvas can help make my dream come true.

"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

MaKe My DrEaMs CoMe TrUe.

[Stef_retired]

Thanks to  @esentz ‌ for sharing this idea, and to everyone who has voted and commented on it. Our engineers are aware of this issue and are currently working on a solution, so it’s not necessary to move it forward for Community consideration as an idea.

[esentz]

stefaniesanders‌ - Thank you! Is there an anticipated timeline? Our math department and several other teachers beyond that have stopped using Canvas as a result until that feature can be added.

[Stef_retired]

 @esentz ‌ : Our engineers are actively working on it, and the timeline is "as soon as humanly possible," keeping in mind that pushing solutions to the apps are dependent upon the updates being made available by the mobile vendors in the respective app stores.

[stu_smithk4]

Bring it back,

[stu_hessc]

Thank You Very Much!!

[stu_neffq]

Thank you very much!!  

[stu_neffq]

amen

[stu_shidea]

Thank you for listening

[stu_sheltona]

Thank You!

[stu_smithh1]

Thank You so much! We appreciate it!

[stu_phendg]

thank you!!

[narmstrong]

We brought back saving annotations in version 6.3.4 available on the App Store now. Sorry for the trouble.

Nate

iOS Software Engineer

[esentz]

Nate - yes, the saving has seemed to be fixed.

We are experiencing issues that every time a new updated comes out all previously saved PDFs are erased. They are able to open files that they previously submitted, but any unsubmitted work (such as notes or warm-ups) is no longer saved after recent updates.