Get familiar with the text editor in Essay questions - for candidates

Introduction

The question type Essay is a text editor that is often used for questions that require longer text responses. In addition to text, you can insert bullet points, tables, formulas and drawings in your answer.

The essay question has a toolbar with functionalities such as: 

Full screen editor Temporary Backup Snapshots Edit formula Table Spell Checker Word Counter Insert Drawing Text Alignment Text Indentation

Full-screen editor

Click Expand to expand the text editor into full screen. This will give you a bigger picture to work with. The text editor will then fill most of your screen, and the question text will no longer be visible. To see the question text again, press the Expand button again to return to normal view. 

When in full-screen mode, the toolbar will always be at the top of the screen, no matter the length of your text.

Note: If you are writing long text in normal view, you have to scroll up to get to the toolbar in the text editor. It is therefore advisable to write long texts in full-screen view.

Temporary Backup Snapshots

With Temporary Backup Snapshots, you can revert to an earlier version of Essay-questions. The backups are created as long as you are inside and type in the same question. A new temporary backup is taken every 15 minutes and is stored in the browser's memory. This means:

• That it works both online and offline.
• You can navigate between questions without resetting the backups.
• The backups, which are temporarily stored, are only available while in the same session. When logging out, the list of temporary backups is cleared. 

If you restore an earlier version, your current version will be saved, so that you optionally can return to it later. 

Edit formula

By pressing the Edit formula button, you can insert formulas into the Essay question. Note that there are two tabs in the formula editor:

Basic	Advanced

Press "Done" to insert the formula into your answer. 

Table

 When you press the Table button, the "Table Properties" window opens:

1) Here you can select the number of rows and columns.

2) Insert headings in the table. Headings can be inserted in the first row, first column or both. 

3) Determine the thickness of the frame in pixels. If you set the value to 0, the dashes will not appear. 

4) Write a caption for the table. The caption will appear above the table. 

5) Specify the width of the table. Entering a number in the text box sets the width in pixels. You can also use units such as %, in, cm, mm, em, ex, pt or pc.

The table can be changed after it is created by right-clicking on the table. You will then get an action menu where you can edit the entire table, insert multiple rows and columns, and edit at the cell level. You may want to put cell size under Cell Properties so that you have full control of your table.

Spell Checker

The spell checker will underline misspelt words as you type. Hover over an underlined word to see and apply suggestions, or open the proofreading dialogue to see all suggestions in one place.

Hover over the circle (1) to see the alternatives.

Click on Disable (2) To disable the spell checker. You can enable it again later. Click on Settings (3) to change language, and to see and select Ignore Options. Click on Proofread in dialogue (4) to see suggested words, and to ignore suggestions.

In the proofreading dialogue (4) you can select suggestions by clicking on the word you want to use. When you have selected a word, the dialogue will show the next suggestion.

In addition, you canu:

Scroll through all suggestions Ignore all suggestions Add word to dictionary After selecting 2 or 3, the dialogue will show the next suggestion.

Word Counter

The text editor lets you keep track of how many words you have written. Word count appears in the right bottom corner.

Maximum number of words

In some cases, you may be asked not to type more than a certain number of words. The restriction then appears as <number of words written>/<maximum allowed words>. Example - Words: 66/200.

In the example, the limit is set to 200 words, and you have typed 66.

When the maximum limit is reached, the indicator turns red, and you are not allowed to type more words. Example - Words: 200/200. 

Insert Drawing

Draw freehand drawings in Essay questions using you mouse. If you have a touch screen, you can use the stylus or your finger.

1) In the drawing tool you can draw with freehand, create different shapes, use an eraser and insert text. 

2) Choose thickness. Here you can choose the thickness of the pencil or/and the frames on a figure.

3) Set colors:

• Stroke: Color of the frame around shapes.
• Fill: Fill color of shapes. 
• Bg: Background colors on the canvas.

To insert the drawing into the text box, press "Save and close".

You can continue to draw, or edit your drawing, by clicking the drawing and then the drawing icon. 

Text Alignment

You are able to align the text in your essay to the left, centre, right, or justify it evenly across the page for a clean and organised look.

Text Indentation

You can indent the text in your essay to create a visual separation between paragraphs or sections for better readability and structure.