Write Your Quiz in Word. Let Canvas Take It From There.
I got five bucks that says creating quizzes generates more support tickets than any other area of Canvas. Not because writing quiz questions is hard, composing them in Canvas’s native quiz tool is what’s hard. Click a question type, then a text box, then another text box, then select your correct answer, then wash-rinse-repeat forty more times for a Week 2 exam. Teachers already wrote the quiz in Word, where they write everything else, but Canvas makes them write it again, one click at a time.
So I built a way around that.
CanvQuizConverter takes a quiz written in a plain Word document and turns it into a file Canvas can import directly. Type your questions the way you’d type anything else, mark the correct answer with an asterisk, upload the file to a small tool running on your own computer, and download a package ready for Canvas’s import screen. No new interface to learn. No clicking through forty individual question forms. The writing you already did is the only writing you have to do.
What it looks like
Open a blank Word document:
1. Chris' favorite color is:
*a. Black
b. Blue
c. Red
d. Turquoise
8. Chris is happy to convert your properly-formatted Word document into a quiz or question bank in your Canvas course.
*a. True
b. False
Star the correct choice. Star more than one on any question and the tool builds a select-all-that-apply question instead, no extra steps required. Upload that file, get a preview right in your browser showing exactly what Canvas will see, correct answers highlighted in green, and anything missing or ambiguous flagged before you download anything.
Those two questions are lifted straight from the actual sample quiz in the repo, which runs eight questions deep and gets progressively more personal. Download sample_quiz.docx if you want the rest, or just want to confirm the tool works before writing your own.
Get it and run it
The tool and full setup instructions live at the CanvQuizConverter GitHub repository. You can also jump straight to the script file itself if you already know what you’re doing.
For everyone else, here’s the whole setup, start to finish, so you don’t have to leave this page to get running.
macOS
Press Command (⌘) + Spacebar, type Terminal, press Enter.
Go to python.org/downloads, download the macOS installer, and run it. Defaults are fine.
In Terminal, paste this and press Enter:
pip3 install streamlit python-docx --break-system-packages
Download the tool from the GitHub page (green Code button, then Download ZIP), unzip it, and move
CanvQuizConverter.pyto your Desktop.In Terminal:
cd ~/Desktop
streamlit run CanvQuizConverter.py
Your browser opens automatically with the tool ready to go.
If you get an unexpected “bad interpreter” error instead, it’s an old Python shortcut, not a broken tool, common on school-managed Macs after an update. Run python3 -m streamlit run CanvQuizConverter.py and should work for you.
Windows 11
Go to python.org/downloads, download the installer, and run it. On the first screen, check “Add python.exe to PATH” before clicking Install Now. Do me a favor? Don’t skip this box.
Click Start, type PowerShell, right-click Windows PowerShell, choose Run as Administrator.
Paste this and press Enter:
pip install streamlit python-docx
Download the tool from my GitHub page, unzip it, and move
CanvQuizConverter.pyto your Desktop.In PowerShell:
cd ~\Desktop
streamlit run CanvQuizConverter.py
Your browser opens automatically with the tool ready to go.
After the first time
You won’t need to reinstall anything. Open Terminal or PowerShell, navigate to wherever CanvQuizConverter.py lives, and run streamlit run CanvQuizConverter.py again. Press Control + C in that window when you’re done.
Getting it into Canvas
Once you’ve downloaded your converted file, go to your Canvas course, click Settings, then Import Course Content in the right-hand panel. Choose QTI .zip file, select what you just downloaded, and import. Your quiz lands in the course’s question bank, ready to assign.
What it isn’t
This isn’t a Canvas API integration, and it doesn’t connect to your course in any way. It produces a standard QTI package, the same format Canvas already accepts, and the import happens through Canvas’s own import screen, the way it always has. No credentials involved, because none are needed.
One more thing
This is released under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license. You are welcome to use it, and if you like it you can share it with your faculty colleagues. If you’re a Canvas Admin you can include it with your onboarding documentation, whatever’s useful to your school. All I ask is that the attribution stays attached. An acknowledgement that your Canvas Insider created this tool.
Thanks very much for your time. Have a good day,
-Chris