Crocodoc is a tool that allows annotations on online assignment submissions in Canvas. If Crocodoc has been enabled for your institution, you can use Crocodoc for assignments and in SpeedGrader. You can view when students view annotated feedback in the assignment details section of the sidebar.

When you open a submission, Crocodoc will automatically save any annotations made to the submission file for one hour. You can restart a Crocodoc session at any time by refreshing the submission page. To help you avoid losing work, Canvas will generate a session expiration warning after 50 minutes.

Some browsers may not initially render comments correctly when viewing feedback. If your browser includes a built-in PDF viewer, select the option to view the PDF in the system viewer. You can also download PDF files with comments to view on your computer. The settings required to view or print the annotations in the PDF vary based on the software installed on your computer.

Compatible Crocodoc Files

If a submission includes a file that can be rendered in Crocodoc, but the submission preview is not complete, Canvas will generate a message stating the document is still processing. If a file is submitted that is not compatible with Crocodoc, the Canvas document previewer will still display the file, but Crocodoc markup and commenting will not be available.

Canvas currently supports .doc/.docx, .ppt/.pptx, and .pdf Crocodoc file formats.

Notes:

• Crocodoc is not available in the Canvas beta environment, so Crocodoc documents will never be rendered.
• Files over 100 MB and password-protected files will not be converted by Crocodoc.
• SpeedGrader may take up to ten minutes after an assignment is submitted to display a document that supports Crocodoc.
• Crocodoc annotations can be viewed in the Canvas by Instructure app.
• Crocodoc annotations cannot be viewed by screen readers; for users with accessibility concerns, please leave feedback in the assignment's comments sidebar.
• Crocodoc has limitations when used in Firefox. To avoid losing any annotations, click the screen before navigating to another student, or choose another browser.

You can view the details of a student's submission in the SpeedGrader sidebar. If a student has resubmitted an assignment, you can view previous versions.