For Canvas LMS courses

Word to Canvas Quiz Converter That Turns a Word Document Into a Canvas Quiz

Drop in the .docx you teach from, the chapter handout, the lecture notes or the study guide. PDFQuiz writes the questions and the correct answers, then gives you a QTI zip that Canvas imports as a quiz. No numbering rules, no asterisks in front of the right answer.

Your file is processed securely and visible only to you. We keep it with your quizzes for as long as your account exists.

Upload your Word document and generate the questions

Click to upload or drag and drop

PDF, DOCX, PPTX, TXT, JPG, JPEG, PNG, HEIC, ODP, ODT, BMP, or TIFF

Up to 10 files at once, 50 MB each, merged into one quiz within the demo page limit

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The short answer

Canvas cannot open a Word file as a quiz. It imports QTI zip packages. PDFQuiz reads your Word document, writes multiple choice, multiple answer and true or false questions with the answers marked and an explanation for each, and exports a Canvas QTI zip. In Canvas you go to Settings, Import Course Content, pick QTI .zip file and upload it, and the quiz appears under Quizzes ready to review and publish, as a Classic Quiz or a New Quiz.

PDFQuiz is an independent tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Instructure or Canvas. The Canvas export is included in the Pro and Elite plans, see the pricing page.

From a Word handout to a Canvas quiz

On the left is what you upload, an ordinary teaching document with no question formatting at all. On the right is the quiz Canvas shows after the import.

Illustration of the workflow. The zip carries the question text, the answer options, the correct answers, 1 point per question and the explanation as general feedback.

How to convert a Word document to a Canvas quiz

Four steps, and the Word file never has to be reformatted. Headings, tables and bullet lists in the document are fine, because the questions are written from what it says.

  1. 1

    Upload the .docx

    Add up to 10 files in one go, Word, PDF, PowerPoint or images, up to 50 MB each. A unit with three handouts becomes one quiz.

  2. 2

    Choose the Canvas types

    Pick single choice, multiple answer and true or false, the three types that travel to Canvas, and set the number of questions.

  3. 3

    Review in the editor

    Reword a stem, replace a weak distractor, add a question of your own or delete one you would not grade. Then name the quiz.

  4. 4

    Import into Canvas

    Download Canvas (QTI). In the course open Settings, Import Course Content, choose QTI .zip file, upload and import.

When the import shows Completed, open Quizzes. The quiz is unpublished, which gives you a moment to set the time limit, the number of attempts and the availability dates before students see it. If your school runs New Quizzes, tick the option to import existing quizzes as New Quizzes on the import screen. Leave it unticked and you get a Classic Quiz.

Teaching several sections? Import the same zip into each course shell, or generate a second set from the same Word document for a makeup exam so the two versions do not share questions.

What lands in Canvas and what stays behind

The Canvas file is a QTI 1.2 package in the layout Canvas itself uses when it exports a quiz. That is why it imports without the errors people get from hand built XML.

In PDFQuiz In Canvas
Single choice, four options Multiple choice question
Multiple answer, two or three right Multiple answers question
True or false True or false question
Explanation General feedback shown after submission
Quiz name Quiz title in the Quizzes list
Fill in the blank, matching, open ended Not included in the Canvas file

Every question imports at 1 point. If you need the blank, matching and essay items in Moodle instead, the GIFT format converter carries all six types.

College instructor editing a printed exam draft at her office desk next to a laptop

Most instructors who search for a Word to Canvas converter have the material in Word already. Sometimes it is last year's exam. More often it is the handout or the reading, and the quiz is the part nobody has written. Building twenty questions one form at a time in the Canvas editor takes an evening. Uploading the handout takes a minute of your attention and leaves the evening for reviewing.

Word to Canvas converter options compared

The question to ask first is whether the quiz already exists in your Word file. If it does, you need a formatter. If you only have the teaching material, you need something that writes questions.

Route What the Word file must look like Who writes the questions Best when
Canvas quiz editor by hand Anything, you copy and paste each part You Five or six questions
Free Word to QTI converters from universities and community members Strict layout, numbered questions, lettered answers and a marker on each correct answer You A finished quiz is typed and you will fix the layout
Respondus 4.0 A formatted Word or text file, opened in a Windows desktop app your campus licenses You Your campus already licenses it; check New Quizzes support with your campus first
Formswrite Questions already written in Word, Google Docs or a PDF You, the tool converts them A written quiz only needs moving into Canvas
ChatGPT plus a QTI tool Anything, but you paste prompts and check the XML or the converter output yourself The chatbot, checked by you You enjoy tinkering and the quiz is short
PDFQuiz Any Word document, plus PDF, slides or scans in the same upload Generated from the document, reviewed and edited by you The questions do not exist yet, or you need a new set every term

Being straight about it, if forty finished questions with the answers marked already sit in your Word file, one of the formatters above gets them into Canvas and that is the cheaper route. Where PDFQuiz pays off is the week a new edition of the textbook arrives, a course gets rebuilt for online delivery or a department hands you a manual with no question bank attached. The questions, the distractors and the feedback come from the document, and the QTI zip is the last click.

Free converters also tend to break on small things: a stray blank line, an answer lettered with a capital, a table pasted from another file. Because PDFQuiz reads the content rather than parsing a layout, formatting in the Word file does not matter.

3 types

Multiple choice, multiple answers and true or false in the Canvas zip

Classic or New

Imports as either quiz engine through the course import tool

10 files

Word, PDF or slides in one upload, up to 50 MB each

Professor with reading glasses marking a printed handout with a red pen beside a laptop

Who uses a Word to Canvas quiz converter

College faculty and adjuncts teaching on Canvas

Weekly reading quizzes written from the handout or the chapter notes kept in Word, imported into each section's course shell.

Instructional designers moving courses online

Knowledge checks for every module of a rebuilt course, generated from the subject expert's Word documents instead of interviewing them for questions.

High school teachers in Canvas districts

Unit checks from the study guide in Word, with a second version for students who were absent, and the same set exported to paper when needed.

Corporate training teams that run Canvas

Policy and onboarding quizzes written from the procedure document, refreshed each time the document is revised.

The same quiz in other formats

One generated quiz downloads in several formats from the same menu. Need the package for Blackboard, D2L or another platform that reads QTI 2.1? The QTI converter page explains which zip to pick. A class review game comes out as a Kahoot spreadsheet, and a paper test comes out as a PDF or Word file with a separate answer key.

If you are still deciding how to set the quiz up inside Canvas, question groups, random draws from a bank, time limits and the difference between Classic and New Quizzes, the Canvas quiz generator guide covers that side.

Word to Canvas quiz questions instructors ask

How do I convert a Word document to a Canvas quiz?

Upload the .docx to PDFQuiz, choose multiple choice, multiple answer or true or false, and generate the questions. Review them, then pick Canvas (QTI) in the download menu. In Canvas open Settings, Import Course Content, choose QTI .zip file, select the zip and import. The quiz appears under Quizzes, unpublished, with the correct answers already marked.

Can you import a Word document into a Canvas quiz?

Not directly. Canvas reads QTI zip packages and its own course exports, not .docx files, so a Word file always goes through a converter first. Free converters need the questions typed in a strict layout. PDFQuiz reads any Word document, writes the questions from its content and hands you the QTI zip Canvas expects.

How do I import a QTI file into Canvas?

In the course, open Settings and click Import Course Content. Set Content Type to QTI .zip file, choose the file, decide whether to import everything or select content, and click Import. When the job shows Completed, go to Quizzes. The new quiz is unpublished, so check the settings, set points and due dates, and publish it.

Does the QTI import work with New Quizzes?

Yes, if your school has New Quizzes on. The import screen then shows an option to import existing quizzes as New Quizzes. Tick it and the package lands as a New Quiz; leave it off and it lands as a Classic Quiz. The checkbox is controlled by your institution, so if it is missing, ask your Canvas admin.

What question types come through to Canvas?

The Canvas zip carries the three choice types. Single choice becomes a Canvas multiple choice question, questions with two or three right answers become multiple answers questions, and true or false stays true or false. Fill in the blank, matching and open ended questions stay in PDFQuiz and are left out of the Canvas file.

Can I convert a Word quiz I already wrote?

You can type or paste your own questions into the PDFQuiz editor and export them, but for a long quiz that is already typed with the answers marked, a formatter built for that job is faster. PDFQuiz earns its place when the Word file is a handout, a chapter or lecture notes and the questions do not exist yet.

Why does my imported quiz show up as Quiz?

Several free Word to QTI converters write the same generic title into every package, so each import arrives named Quiz and you rename it by hand. The PDFQuiz package writes your quiz name as the assessment title, so the quiz you named Unit 4 Cell Biology arrives in Canvas under that name.

How many points is each question worth after import?

Each question imports at 1 point, so a 25 question quiz is worth 25 points. Change the points per question in the Canvas quiz editor, or in Classic Quizzes put the questions in a question group and set the points for the whole group at once. The explanation PDFQuiz wrote is attached as general feedback.

Working from a PDF or a slide deck instead of a Word file? The upload box takes those too, and the Word to quiz converter page covers .docx study guides when the quiz is for students rather than Canvas.

Related converters and tools

Canvas Quiz Generator

Classic Quizzes and New Quizzes from your course files.

QTI Converter

Canvas QTI 1.2 and QTI 2.1 packages compared.

GIFT Format Converter

Word to GIFT for the Moodle question bank.

Blackboard Test Generator

Tests for Blackboard Learn and Ultra.

Word to Quiz

Questions written from any .docx file.

Answer Key Generator

A separate answer key for the printed version.

Turn this week's Word handout into a Canvas quiz

Upload the document, review the questions and their feedback, and import one QTI zip instead of building the quiz one question at a time.

Upload your Word file