Resolving formatting issues in Blackboard annotate

Description

Common fonts such as Times New Roman are substituted with other visually and metrically incompatible fonts in Bb Annotate.  This can cause page layout changes because the fonts are 'wider' than those selected by the user. 

Environment

Mac, PC, and web browser

Solution 

  • Students can save DOCX files with embedded fonts (Windows only instructions) or convert to PDF (Mac instructions) and Windows instructions) to preserve formatting. The inline assignment grader now displays a banner message on submissions that may be affected by this issue. 

  • Files could lose any non-ASCII characters in the file name when the annotated PDF is downloaded. 

  • In non-English language packs, some garbled characters may appear when using Bb Annotate. 

  • Some browsers' built-in PDF viewer may not display all of the annotations. Please view annotated PDFs in a native PDF viewer, such as Adobe Acrobat. 

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Additional resources