* When I create my blog/wiki/journal in Blackboard, it tells me to "Reduce the size of the input" even though I haven't written that much.

Blackboard has a limit of 3800 characters for the instruction box.  If you write your instructions in Microsoft Word and then cut and paste them into Blackboard, the formatting code from Microsoft will add extra characters to your total.

To avoid this, you can do one of two things:

1.) In the toolbar above the text box, click on the brackets (< >) button that says Toggle HTML Source Code.  From there, you can cut and paste your text.  Click on the brackets again to turn on the text editor again.

2.) If you would like to post longer instructions, you can attach your Word document using the Attach File button.

Both buttons are highlighted in the image below.