Publish Items > Retrieving item lists > Preparing items and item lists for publishing

Preparing items and item lists for publishing

Items are retrieved from the Surpass Platform by the Surpass Publisher in item list format. Only a subset of items and associated assets can be published.

This article details what content is supported and how to ensure your items are ready for retrieval and publishing in the Surpass Publisher.

In this section

Creating your items

For comprehensive information on creating items in the Surpass Platform, read the Item Authoring section of the Surpass Platform documentation. refer to the following sections for information on the content supported by the Surpass Publisher.

TIP: You should also check your content against the ‘Publishing errors’ listed in the Downloading publish reports article before trying to retrieve and publish your items, to pre-empt any potential issues later in the process.

Item types

NOTE: The following table refers to item's question stems and answer options, refer to the 'Item Assets' section for other item components and settings.

Item Type	Pearson VUE QTI	Spreadsheet
Basic and Information Pages
Either/Or
Hotspot
Item Sets
Multiple Choice
Multiple Response

Item assets

Item Asset	Pearson VUE QTI	Spreadsheet
Answer Option Labels
Assistive Media
Enemy Relationships
Formulae
Media NOTE: In Pearson VUE QTI format, media thumbnails only appear in the test driver if the media is included as part of the package rather than being sourced from the Pearson VUE Media Deployer.
Multiple Response: Exclusive Option
Multiple Response: Maximum number of candidate selections
Multiple Response: Only award mark if candidate selects all correct options (Partial Mark)
Randomise Order
Source Material NOTE: In Pearson VUE QTI format (Browser edition), spreadsheets attached as source material are unsupported and videos attached as source material cannot be resized.
Table in Question Stem NOTE: In Pearson VUE QTI format, images in tables are not supported and formatted text may not display correctly.
Tags

NOTE: The Surpass Publisher optimises item media (images, video, and source material) and layout for compilation and delivery in 1280x1024 resolution. These default measurements can be configured in the Surpass Publisher’s appsettings JSON file.

HTML tags

Any HTML tags included in text fields are supported by Spreadsheet format but may be sanitised. HTML text styling beyond basic formatting is removed from the Pearson VUE QTI; expand the following section for a comprehensive reference table of all HTML tags supported by Pearson VUE QTI.

Tag	Description
`<b>`	N/A
`<caption>`	N/A
`<dd>`	N/A
`<dl>`	N/A
`<dt>`	N/A
`<em>`	N/A
`<font>`	`bgcolor`, `color`, `face`, `size`
`<i>`	N/A
`<img>`	`src`, `align` (`top`, `bottom`, `left`, `right`), `height`, `width`, `alt`
`<li>`	N/A
`<ol>`	N/A
`<p>`	`align` (`leading`, `trailing`, `left`, `right`, `center`, `justify`), `style` (`text-indent`, `margin-left`, `margin-right`, `margin-top`, `margin-bottom`, `white-space`), `tab_stops` (`interval`, `tabset`, `alignment`; `left`, `right`, `center`, `decimal`, `bar`)
`<s>`	N/A
`<span>`	`font-family`, `color`, `font-size`
`<strike>`	N/A
`<strong>`	N/A
`<sub>`	N/A
`<sup>`	N/A
`<table>`	N/A
`<tbody>`	N/A
`<td>`	N/A
`<th>`	N/A
`<thead>`	N/A
`<tr>`	N/A
`<u>`	N/A
`<ul>`	N/A

Creating an item list

Items must be added to an item list before they can be retrieved by the Surpass Publisher. To learn more about creating an item list in Surpass, read the About the Item Lists screen article from the Surpass documentation.

To retrieve your item list in the Surpass Publisher, you must search for your item list’s unique reference code. For more information, read Searching for an item list in the Surpass Publisher.