Are you looking to add some aesthetics and usability to your Canvas course? Consider building a custom home page for your course. Your students will see this home page right away and each button will link them to modules or other areas in the course that they need to go to. This leads to less confusion and a better experience for students.

First, upload your button files in bulk to the Files area.

It’s helpful to create a folder to help organize them. Follow these instructions if you need help:

Create a Folder in Files
Upload Files in Bulk

Don’t have buttons yet? You can find free graphics editors online to create them, use Photoshop in one of the WPI computer labs, or if you'd just like to add a splash of color to your home page, we have some ready made solid color buttons that you can upload to your course site. If you're having trouble, contact atc-ttl@wpi.edu and we can help you!

Now you can add them to your Home Page. To have buttons line up nicely – I insert a table into the page, then add a button to each cell. The templates are set up for how many cells across the table is. Most commonly used is 3 buttons across and then however many down you need.

To configure your “button table” follow the steps below:

Create a Page and add a title.
Click Table in the formatting menu, hover the cursor over the word Table in the drop down menu.
Then hover over the number of cells you want in your table. 3 columns across is usually the maximum width we recommend for buttons. You can have as many rows as you'd like!
Then click the mouse when you are finished to insert the table into your page.
Click inside the first cell to select it.
Locate the Image icon in the formatting toolbar. Click on the arrow just to the right of the image icon to reveal the drop down menu.
Choose Course Images from the drop down menu.
Click on your first button image and it will automatically insert into the cell.
Click on each cell in the table and repeat step 6 until all your images are added (the image window will stay open).
When finished, close the image window.

Now it's time to add the links out to each of your Modules (or Pages, Assignments, etc.)

Click on the button image to select it (a blue outline will appear around the image when it is selected).
Locate the chain link icon in the formatting toolbar. Click on the arrow just to the right of the chain link icon to reveal the dropdown menu.
Choose Course Links from the drop down menu.
In the window that appears on the right, click the arrow to the left of the category to browse for the item you'd like to link (or if you know the title use the search at the top)
Click on the title of the Module, Page or Assignment to create the link.
Click on each button image in the table and repeat step 5 until all your buttons are linked (the link window will stay open).
When finished, close the image window.
Click Save or Save and Publish to view your new home page!

Just 2 more steps before you’ve got a new course home page!

Select this new home page as your Front Page. If you’re not sure how to do this, follow these instructions: How do I select a pages Front Page?
Select this page as your course Home Page. How do I select a course home page?

Finishing Touches

You can use the formatting tools in the toolbar to adjust how your buttons appear in the table. Just click in each cell and use these to adjust until it looks best to you.

formatting tools showing left align, center, and right align

Feel free to reach out with any questions! atc-ttl@wpi.edu

Download Generic Button Templates - These files are ready made buttons for you to use in a variety of solid colors. Each one is labeled by Week (so, Week 1, Week 2... etc.) Just plop these into your table, link out to your Modules and you're all set!