Moodle GIFT format generator: GIFT format converter and question generator for Moodle

Why does my GIFT file fail to import?

Almost always because of an unescaped special character. GIFT uses the colon, the equals sign, the tilde, the hash and both curly braces as markup, so a question that says "What is 2 + 2 = ?" or quotes a time like 10:30 breaks the parser at that exact spot unless the character is written with a backslash in front of it. Hand typed files hit this constantly, and converters that do not escape properly pass the problem on.

The second cause is encoding. Moodle expects the file as UTF-8. A file saved from Word or Notepad in another encoding turns accented letters, curly quotes and dashes into garbage, or stops the import outright. The third is structure: a missing closing brace swallows the next question, and a missing blank line between questions merges two into one.

The quiet failure is worse than any of those. A multiple choice block where no answer carries an equals sign imports without complaint, and every choice scores zero. VidQuiz checks for exactly that before it writes the file, and when the stored answer does not match an option it adds the answer as its own correct choice rather than ship an item nobody can get right.

• Escape these with a backslash: colon, equals, tilde, hash, left brace, right brace
• Save the file as UTF-8 plain text
• Close every brace, and leave one blank line between questions
• Check each multiple choice block has one line starting with an equals sign

Can I convert a Word document to GIFT format?

Yes, if the document already holds finished questions. Text2Gift takes questions pasted from any word processor with the correct answers marked by an asterisk and returns GIFT, free, with a donor code that lifts its restrictions. GETMARKED Digitaliser reads the DOCX file directly and starts at $29 a year. Both keep your wording exactly, which is what you want when the questions were already reviewed.

VidQuiz is not a Word converter and we would rather say so than waste your afternoon. It does not read DOCX, PDF or PowerPoint files at all. What it does read is text, so if the document is lecture notes or a chapter rather than a question list, copy the text into the paste mode and it writes new questions from it. That is a different job from conversion: the wording is ours, and you review it.

What does the VidQuiz GIFT export contain?

A single .txt file in UTF-8. It opens with two comment lines naming the quiz and the import path, then a category line set to the quiz title, then one block per question with a blank line between them. Each question gets a name built from the first 60 characters of its text, which is what you see in the question bank list, so you can tell thirty imported items apart without opening each one.

Multiple choice questions are written one answer per line, the correct one starting with an equals sign and carrying the explanation as its feedback, the rest starting with a tilde. When the question came from a recording, the timestamp is added as general feedback, so a student reviewing an attempt sees which minute of the lecture covered it. True or false questions use the bare TRUE or FALSE token with the explanation in both feedback slots, so it shows whichever way the student answers. Short answer questions carry one accepted answer.

A quiz holds up to 30 questions. Question text is plain text, so bold, images and formulas do not travel in the file.

• UTF-8 .txt, named after the quiz
• A category line set to the quiz title
• Question names taken from the first 60 characters
• Explanation as answer feedback, timestamp as general feedback
• Multiple choice, true or false and short answer
• Up to 30 questions per quiz

Is GIFT better than Moodle XML for importing questions?

For questions made of text, GIFT is the easier file to live with. You can open it in any editor, read it, fix a typo and import again. Moodle XML carries more, including images embedded in the file, HTML formatting and every setting of every question type, which makes it the right format for moving a whole bank between Moodle sites, and the wrong one to write or check by hand.

The choice is really made by the content. A bank of text questions with feedback is a GIFT job. A bank full of diagrams, formulas and chemistry notation belongs in Moodle XML. Aiken, the third plain text option, is simpler still but carries multiple choice only and no feedback at all, so the explanation for each question is lost on import.

Can a GIFT generator write the questions for me?

The converters cannot, by design, and GIFTGenerator only produces math items from its own templates. VidQuiz is the tool on the table that starts from your material. Paste a YouTube link and it reads the video directly. For a Panopto, Kaltura or Zoom recording, or an MP4 you upload, paste the transcript alongside it, because VidQuiz has no speech to text of its own and tells you so up front. For a textbook chapter or a set of notes, the paste mode takes up to 60,000 characters with no video at all.

What comes back is a first draft for a teacher to review, not a validated exam. Every question, option, answer and explanation is editable before you export, which is where most people cut one or two items and fix a distractor. The signed out preview runs the real generator on a short sample but does not download files, so exports start once you have an account.

Does the same question set work outside Moodle?

Yes, and that is often the reason to generate rather than hand type GIFT. The same quiz exports as a QTI 1.2 package for Canvas, Brightspace and Sakai, a tab delimited .txt for Blackboard in both course views, a Google Forms ready CSV, a plain CSV and a PDF with the answer key. A department that teaches the same course on Moodle and on Canvas fills both from one set without converting anything twice.

One limit is worth knowing before you plan around it. Moodle itself does not import QTI, so a QTI package sent to a Moodle site does nothing. GIFT is the file for Moodle, full stop.