The Moodle text editor does time out after about 15 mins (and forgets what you've written when you post!). So if you know what you are going to write will take a while its often more convenient to do this in a Word Processor,
BUT!! copying text from Microsoft Word can cause very strange effects when pasted into the Moodle rich text editor. This issue is not restricted to Moodle - it's Microsoft products that do not play well with web-based text editors (when you copy and paste from Word you also copy all the underlying bespoke formatting that Word uses)
To copy text properly, you have to:
- Start your word processor and compose your message on it.
- When you are finished writing your message in the word processor, select the whole text (e.g. by pressing Ctrl+A) and copy it (Ctrl+C).
- Go into Moodle and either create a new forum or reply to an existing message.
- Position the cursor inside the Message box and paste the text (Ctrl+V).
- On most browsers, you can now need to 'clean up' the word processor's code. Highlight the whole text in the text box, and press the little Word button
in the top right corner of the rich text editor's top toolbar. - Click on 'Post to forum' to publish your message.
Please note that when you do this some formatting might be lost, however, if you do not clean up the text, you might not be able to edit your text properly.