Import text into lesson rather than cut/copy-and-paste?

Import text into lesson rather than cut/copy-and-paste?

by Mike J -
Number of replies: 6

I have a large amount of text (actually a complete curriculum - the equivalent of several thousand printed pages) that I'd like to import into multiple lessons. 

I can convert the text externally into HTML, .txt, .doc, or whatever would be easiest to work with. 

Is there a way to import this other than to copy/paste it a page at a time?

I've played with the PowerPoint import but haven't had a whole lot of luck with it.

Suggestions?  TIA!

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In reply to Mike J

Re: Import text into lesson rather than cut/copy-and-paste?

by Chris Collman -
Picture of Documentation writers
Hi,
Import PPT is tricky, but if it is simple text, then it can work. The trick is making it simple. Have you read MoodleDocs on Import PowerPoint.

Once or twice a year I have to remember how to import a Word Document into PowerPoint, using heading for page breaks. But I still like my clunky tweak that imports a zip file of images from a OO Impress web page folder. Even if the images are text.

Lesson edit views have improved, but I still get frustrated, double checking every slide for little things I missed when I tried to import it via PowerPoint.
The MoodleDocs gives some idea. Importing an image of a page is much easier to deal with. I import 500 to 1,000 pages a year this way as Branch tables.

Working out the code for all the variables that MS uses and changes almost with every version, is difficult.

Every now and then, somebody suggest using flash.

Not much help, Chris

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In reply to Chris Collman

Re: Import text into lesson rather than cut/copy-and-paste?

by Mike J -

Thanks, Chris - I've read, Googled, and searched these forums.  Some of the material I want to put up is in .ppt, but the slides contain multiple text boxes rather than having all the "body text" in one text box.

I was hoping that somebody had been here before and had a trick, a script, or something to save a little time!

Thanks again!

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In reply to Mike J

Re: Import text into lesson rather than cut/copy-and-paste?

by Chris Collman -
Picture of Documentation writers
I dislike the short word, and I should have said "No" in my initial reply. And , no, multiple text boxes don't work (I think slide numbers are text boxes). Something with one level of bullets usually does.

I spent a lot time working with alternatives in the Spring of 2006. Dead ended with PPT but began to understand some of the issues. Our material is static so my OO Impress tweak of nothing but importing images into branch tables works for us. But that sure is ugly.

Running Flash in a Lesson is what my site administrator tells me he wants next (oops this) year.

Best Chris

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In reply to Chris Collman

Re: Paste from MS Word

by Marcel Mateescu -
Hi Chris, I have developed a method to copy and paste from Word to Moodle.
here http://amgd.ro/docs/data/w2m.zip

The requirements are:
1. you have a webserver accessible in your netword as a windows share (ex. a Windows machine or a samba linux share)
2. you use a different domain for your images storage than your base moodle install (it still can be the same computer, use a subdomain ex media.mymoodle.org)

If your Moodle deployment is (as it usually happens) on a server at your university/school, the two statements above hold.
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In reply to Marcel Mateescu

Re: Paste from MS Word

by Chris Collman -
Picture of Documentation writers
Thanks, I will be checking it out. I have a 150 question quiz to put to bed on Thursday and then I will check out the link and see if I can figure it out.

Best Chris
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In reply to Marcel Mateescu

Re: Paste from MS Word

by Matthew Rowe -
Hi Chris and Marcel,

I recently commissioned the development of a small Firefox plugin to solve this issue.

It adds a "Paste as plain text" option to the Firefox right-click menu. It will strip out all the formatting from Word - it's the equivalent of pasting Word > Notepad > Moodle.

Feel free to download it from http://www.hayton.com.au/clip.xpi

The credit for programming goes to Rocky at Softrock.

I'm not sure of a permanent place for this file, I'm sure other Moodle users could benefit from it - if you have any suggestions...

Regards,

Matthew.
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