User Manual

To use the Special Characters click on the external tools icon in the rich text editor:

Then select Special Characters from the dropdown list, or if it isn’t shown select View All and select if from there:

A dialogue will be displayed and there you can click on the character you would like to be inserted into the editor. Clicking Cancel will close the selection and not insert anything into the editor.

Administrator Manual

Special Characters is designed to be a LTI 1.1 tool installed into Canvas. When setup in Canvas it should appear in the external tools dropdown in the Rich Text Editor.

Installation

There are 2 ways to install Special Characters into a Canvas installation, either by adding Special Characters through the Edu App Center or manually.

Add the tool using EduAppCenter

If you are an Instructor then there’s some documentation about using the Edu App Center in a course which guides you through how the Edu App Center works. To set up Special Characters follow these steps.

• Navigate to course or sub-account you wish to add the tool to.
• Click on the Settings page.
• Click on the Apps tab.
• Type characters in the search box.
• Click on the Special Characters box in the search results.
• Click on +Add App
• When the dialogue is displayed click Add App
• The app should now be added to Canvas and available in the Rich Content Editor (RCE) under the Apps icon.

Institutions are able to limit the apps that are available in the Edu App Center so if the tool isn’t showing up you may need to contact your administrators or manually add the tool.

Add the tool manually

There’s an overview of what an LTI tool is in the Canvas Community site. To setup Special Characters follow these steps.

• Navigate to course or sub-account you wish to add the tool to.
• Click on the Settings page.
• Click on the Apps tab.
• Click on the View App Configurations button if using Instructure hosted Canvas.
• Click on the + App button.
• In the dialogue enter:
  • Configuration Type: By URL
  • Name: Special Characters
  • Consumer Key: leave empty
  • Consumer Secret: leave empty
  • Config URL: https://characters.wyelearning.com/config.xml
• Click on the Submit button and the app should now be added to Canvas and available in the Rich Content Editor (RCE) under the Apps icon.

FAQ

What happens if the service is turned off?

When you select a character it is returned to Canvas and this is embedded in the page/document you are editing. If our service is turned off all your characters will continue to work without any issues. The only functionality that will be lost is the ability to insert new special characters.

What does this cost?

The tool is free to install and use, we hope you find it useful.

How do I change the size of the character?

If you then want to change it’s size you can select the character and adjust the font size in the Canvas editor.

How can I add additional characters to insert?

If you would like additional characters added to the application please contact us at: support@wyelearning.com. It is also possible to define a custom set of characters that are useful in the context of the course (eg set Spanish characters for teaching Spanish).

Can the icon appear directly in the editor toolbar?

If the app is installed at the account level (rather than in only one course), then you can select to have it appear directly in the editor toolbar by following this guide on adding a external tool to the RCE toolbar.