Using the formatting toolbar

The formatting toolbar lets you control the appearance of selected text when creating items or source material. The formatting toolbar also allows you to change the content type on certain entry fields from text to equation, image, or table.

This article explains how to use the formatting toolbar in Mixed and HTML subject items and source material.

In this article

Finding the formatting toolbar

The formatting toolbar is available in the following locations:

• Item question stems
• Answer options for the following question types:
  • Multiple Choice
  • Multiple Response
  • Either/Or
  • Advanced Short Answer (HTML subjects only)
  • Advanced Numerical Entry (HTML subjects only)
• Introduction Page, Information Page, and Finish Page text fields
• HTML source material text fields

To reveal the formatting toolbar, select the text field.

Standard formatting toolbar options

To create and edit text, select Text Editor .

The following options are visible by default. Highlight a selection of text before choosing an option to apply changes only to that content.

Icon	Setting	Description	HTML subjects only
	Bold (Control+B)	Makes text darker.
	Italics (Control+I)	Makes text slant to the right.
	Underline (Control+U)	Adds a horizontal line below the text.
	Align Left	Aligns text along the left margin.
	Centre	Aligns text in the middle of the content area.
	Align Right	Aligns text along the right margin.
	Strikethrough	Adds a horizontal line through the middle of the text.
	Insert Horizontal Line	Adds a horizontal line between paragraph blocks.
	Bulleted List	Starts a bulletpoint list at the cursor’s position.
	Font Name	Choose your typeface. See ‘Available fonts’ below for more information.
	Font Size	Choose the size of your text.
	Insert Special Character	Opens the Select Special Character dialog. Select a special character to add it to the text. For more information, read About special characters.
	Text Colour	Changes the colour of your text.
	Table Editor	Adds a table. See Creating tables in items for more information.
	Resize	Makes all content in stem visible without a scrollbar.

Available fonts

The following table displays which fonts are available in Surpass on different operating systems:

Font Type	Windows	MacOS	iOS	iPadOS
Arial/Arial, Helvetica  (Sans-serif)
Arial
Helvetica
Comic Sans MS/Comic Sans MS, Comic Sans, Chalkboard, Chalkboard SE (Sans-serif)
Comic Sans MS
Comic Sans
Chalkboard
Chalkboard SE
Courier New/Courier New, Courier (Monospace)
Courier New
Impact/Impact, Charcoal (Sans-serif)
Impact
Charcoal
Georgia/Georgia (Serif)
Georgia
Lucida Console/Lucida Console, Monaco (Monospace)
Lucida Console
Monaco
Lucida Sans Unicode/Lucida Sans Unicode, Lucida Grande (Sans-serif)
‘Lucida Sans Unicode
‘Lucida Grande
Tahoma/Tahoma, Geneva (Sans-serif)
Tahoma
Geneva
Palatino Linotype/Palatino Linotype, Palatino (Serif)
Palatino Linotype
Palatino
Times New Roman/Times New Roman, Times (Serif)
Times New Roman
Times
Trebuchet MS/Trebuchet MS, Helvetica (Sans-serif)
Trebuchet MS
Helvetica
Verdana/Verdana, Geneva (Sans-serif)
Verdana
Geneva
MS Gothic/MS Gothic (Sans-serif)
MS Gothic

Advanced formatting toolbar options

Select Advanced on the formatting toolbar to reveal additional options.

Icon	Setting	Description	HTML subjects only
	Subscript	Sets the character(s) below the line of type.
	Superscript	Sets the character(s) above the line of type.
	Text direction from left to right	Text travels from the left side of the content area to the right.
	Text direction from right to left	Text travels from the right side of the content area to the left.
	Source	Allows you to edit the current content area’s HTML source code. WARNING: Editing the content area’s HTML source code may cause issues in test delivery, so it is vital you test and quality check how any edited HTML displays in delivery before scheduling a live test. For information on how to quality review a test in Surpass, read About the Quality Review panel. IMPORTANT: Do not edit the source code of Mixed subject items.
	Templates	Lets you insert a component template.
	Insert Comment	Adds an inline comment. Read Leaving comments on items for more information.
	Insert image	Inserts an image inline with text content.
	Styles	Applies a pre-formatted style to the selected text.
	Remove Format	Strips selected text of all formatting. See ‘Available styles (HTML subjects only)’ below for more information.
	Em Space	Adds a space the width of a capital letter M.
	En Space	Adds a space the width of a capital letter N.
	WIRIS EDITOR math	Opens the WIRIS EDITOR math dialogue in HTML subjects for the entry of inline equation content. See ‘Creating equations’ below for more information.

Available styles (HTML subjects only)

Use Styles to apply formatting presets to your text.

Style	Description
Border	Places a blue frame around the selected text.
Emphasis	Increases the selected text’s size to the maximum value (24 px).
Symbol Padding	Inserts a transparent 10 px border either side of the selected text.
Capitals	Renders lowercase characters as small capitals.
No Wrapping	Removes line breaks, rendering the selected string on one line.
Strong Emphasis	Changes the selected text’s size to the maximum value (24 px), its colour to red, and the font to Times New Roman.

Creating equations

To create and edit equations, select Equation Editor (Mixed subjects) or WIRIS EDITOR math (HTML subjects).

Selecting Equation Editor in a Mixed subject changes the stem block’s content type. To add more text, images, or tables, you must add another stem.

Selecting WIRIS EDITOR math in an HTML subject opens a dialog where you can input equation content to be inserted inline with text. Select OK to add the equation content and close the dialog.

For more information on the equation plugin, refer to the MathType Web documentation.

Adding images

To add an image, select Image Editor . This changes the stem block’s content type. To add more text, equations, or tables, you must add another stem.

Press Select Image to open the Media Library. Find or upload an image and select Add media to item. For information on uploading images to Surpass, read Importing files to the media library.

When an image has been added, select one of the following alignment options:

Icon	Description
	Aligns image along the left margin.
	Aligns image to the middle of the content area.
	Aligns image along the right margin.

If you want to change your image, select it to return to the Media Library.

To delete an image, select Remove image from this text area .

Creating tables

To create and edit tables, select Table Editor .

In Mixed subjects, you can add tables to question stem blocks 2-5.

In HTML subjects, you can create tables inline with question stem content in all question stems. You can also create tabular answer options for Multiple Choice, Multiple Response, Multiple Choice survey, and Multiple Response survey items.

For full instructions on how to add tables to Mixed and HTML subject items, read Creating tables in items.