Topic outline

  • Special characters in short answers

    • Example

      In this example, students must complete the following formula by entering the characters "<="& (highlighted), in a Short answer sub-question:

      =COUNTIF(B4:B10;"<="&A1)

    • The characters ", < and = do not pose a problem, but the character & must be treated in a special way.

    • Escaping the & character with a preceding backslash, \&, or replacing it with its HTML character entity name, &​amp;, does not work. However, replacing it with its HTML character entity decimal number, &​#38;, or hexadecimal number, &​#x26;, does work.

    • Moreover, do not use the Atto or the TinyMCE editors which automatically replace & with &​amp;, which doesn't work.

    • You must use the plain text area editor. But it only works on the first save of the question. On subsequent saves, the editor automatically adds a backslash to escape the # character and it no longer works. However, you can remove this backslash and save the question, which will then work again.