Essay

What Is the Essay Slide?

The essay slide lets learners write free-text responses directly inside your cBook. It provides a rich text editor where learners can format their answer, save it, and export it as a printout. As an author, you can set character limits and review all submitted responses in the Creator.

The essay slide requires an active engagement server connection (included in your license) because learner responses are stored on the server.

Editor Overview

When you add an essay slide, you see three areas:

The stage — a live preview of the slide. At the top you can edit the header texts (overline, title, caption, and description). Below that is the text area where learners will type their response, along with Save and Export buttons.
The sidebar — two tabs on the right: Appearance for visual settings and images, and Settings for character limits.
The toolbar — at the top of the stage, with standard editing tools and a device orientation toggle to preview the slide in landscape or portrait mode.

Header Texts

At the top of the slide you can add up to four text fields. All of them support rich text formatting:

Overline — a short label displayed above the title (e.g., "Task 3")
Title — the main heading of the slide
Caption — a subtitle below the title
Description — additional instructions or context for the learner

All four fields are optional. Click directly on the stage to edit them.

The Text Area

The text area is where learners write their response. In the editor, it shows a preview of the formatting toolbar that learners will see. The toolbar gives learners the following formatting options:

Text styles: Bold, Italic, Strikethrough, Underline, Monospace

Block types: Normal text, Heading Large, Heading Medium, Heading Small, Code Block, Unordered List, Ordered List, Blockquote

Other: Insert links (open in new tab or current tab), Undo, Redo

Button Labels

Below the text area, there are two buttons: Save and Export. You can customize the label text for both buttons by clicking directly on them in the editor. For example, you might rename "Save" to "Submit answer" or "Export" to "Print my essay".

If you leave a button label empty, it falls back to the default ("Save" or "Export").

Settings

Open the Settings tab in the sidebar to configure character limits.

Minimum Number of Characters

Set a minimum number of characters that learners must enter before they can save. When a minimum is set, the slide displays "Min. X characters" below the text area. The Save and Export buttons stay disabled until the learner reaches the minimum.

Default: 0 (no minimum).

Maximum Number of Characters

Set a maximum number of characters. When a limit is set, the slide displays "Max. X characters" below the text area. The Save and Export buttons become disabled if the learner exceeds the limit.

Leave this at 0 or empty for unlimited characters.

Character Counter

The slide always shows a live character counter below the text area (e.g., "42 characters"). When the learner's text falls outside the allowed range, the counter turns red to signal the issue.

Note: The character count is based on the plain text — HTML formatting tags are not counted.

Appearance

Open the Appearance tab in the sidebar to configure images.

Background Image

An optional image that fills the entire slide. If the image dimensions differ from the slide, it will be scaled and cropped to fit. You can upload separate images for landscape and portrait orientations. If you only provide a landscape image, it will be used for both orientations.

Interaction Image

An optional image displayed on top of the background image. Unlike the background image, the interaction image is never cropped. You can also upload separate landscape and portrait versions.

Image Filters

Both the background image and the interaction image support these visual filters:

Blur — from 0 (sharp) to 20 (heavily blurred)
Grayscale — from 0% (full color) to 100% (fully grayscale)
Sepia — from 0% (no effect) to 100% (full sepia tone)
Brightness — from 50% (darker) to 150% (brighter), with 100% being normal
Contrast — from 50% (low contrast) to 150% (high contrast), with 100% being normal

How Learners Experience the Slide

When a learner opens an essay slide:

They see the header texts (overline, title, caption, description) and the text area.
They write their response using the rich text editor with the formatting toolbar.
The character counter updates in real time. If character limits are configured, the limits are shown and the counter turns red when the text is out of range.
They click Save to submit their response. This marks the slide as complete and stores the text on the engagement server. The slide shows a "Last saved" timestamp afterward.
They can click Export to open a print-friendly view of their essay in the browser's print dialog.
If the learner returns to the slide later, their previously saved response is loaded automatically.

The Save and Export buttons are disabled when:

The text has fewer characters than the minimum
The text exceeds the maximum character limit
The response is still loading from the server

Evaluating Responses

As an author, you can review all learner responses in the Creator. Open the essay slide and switch to the Evaluation view. Here you can:

Select a learning group from the dropdown to view that group's responses
View responses in a table showing each user's name and their submitted text
Export to Excel — select one or more learning groups and download all responses as an Excel file
Print — select one or more learning groups and print all responses

Note: There is no automated scoring or AI-based evaluation. The essay slide is a collection tool — all review and grading happens manually by the educator.

Step-by-Step Guides

Creating a Simple Writing Prompt

Add a new slide and choose Essay as the core slide type.
Click on the Title area on the stage and type your question or prompt (e.g., "Describe the main causes of climate change").
Optionally add more context in the Description field.
If you want to ensure a minimum effort, go to Settings and set the minimum number of characters (e.g., 200).
Preview the slide to verify everything looks right.

Setting Up a Structured Essay with Limits

Create an essay slide and add your prompt in the header fields.
In Settings, set the minimum to 100 and the maximum to 500 characters.
Customize the Save button label to "Submit answer" by clicking on it in the editor.
This ensures learners write at least 100 characters but no more than 500 — useful for short-answer tasks.

Adding a Visual Background

Open the Appearance tab in the sidebar.
Upload a Background image in landscape format.
If your cBook will be used on mobile devices, also upload a portrait version.
To make text more readable over the image, increase the Blur filter to 5–10 and reduce Brightness to around 70%.
Alternatively, use the Interaction image to overlay a semi-transparent panel for better readability.

Reviewing and Exporting Student Responses

Open the essay slide in the Creator.
Switch to the Evaluation view.
Select a learning group from the dropdown.
Browse responses in the table.
To download all responses, click Export to Excel, select the learning groups you want to include, and click Export.
To print, click Print, select the groups, and confirm.

Requirements and Limitations

Engagement server required — The essay slide needs a connection to the engagement server. If your license does not include it, a warning banner will appear in the editor.
Login required — Learners must be logged in and have accepted the disclaimer to save their responses.
Theme support — Your cBook's theme must support WYSIWYG editing. If it doesn't, a warning will appear and the preview may be unstyled.
No automated evaluation — There is no keyword matching, AI scoring, or rubric system. All evaluation is done manually.