Add formatting to your page
- Karen Jennings
- Tim C
Format your page
You can add emphasis to your text with formatting such as italics, bold, underline—even color and alignment.
In addition to your standard formatting options, like bold and italics, you can also change page layouts in Confluence, add dynamic tables of contents, add and assign tasks, and display images, gifs, videos, and other multimedia.
Pages in your site may use the new editor or the legacy editor. This page explains how to use both editors.
Which editor does your page use?
When you edit a page, you can look over the toolbar for visual indicators, like the differences between the text color pickers, the inclusion of undo / redo buttons, or an emoji icon in the new editor toolbar. You'll also notice that the Publish… or Update and Close buttons were moved to the top right in the new editor.
New editor
Legacy editor
New editor
This section provides the following details for creating, editing, and publishing content using the new editor.
Text
Links
Images, videos, .gifs, and files
Tables
Layouts
Text
Confluence has most of the standard formatting options you'd see in other document editors. The text you add to the page is formatted as normal text, but you can assign up to six levels of headings by changing the paragraph style.
You can also add emphasis to your text with formatting such as italics, bold, underline as well as text color and alignment.
Links
To insert a link on a page:
Select some text, or position your cursor where you want to insert the link.
Choose Link on the toolbar. You can also use keyboard shortcuts - Ctrl+K on Windows and command+K on Mac.
Select a page, blog post, or enter an external URL (see Links and Anchors for how to link to particular types of content).
Enter or modify the link text. This is the text that will appear on the page. If this field is left blank, the page name or URL will be used as the link text.
Press Enter.
You can also paste a URL directly onto your page. Confluence automatically creates the link, and if the URL is from a page on the current site, the page name will be set as the link text.
Images, videos, gifs, and files
If a photo is worth a thousand words, how many words is a gif worth?
Add an image, video, GIF, or file to a Confluence page by selecting the Add image, video, or file button. You can upload the media from your computer or display an image from another web page using its URL.
Confluence supports a variety of media formats, including Adobe Flash, MP3, MP4, and other movie formats.
Resizing images and videos
You can resize images and videos by dragging the handles on their sides. Media will proportionally grow or shrink based on how much you drag the mouse in and out.
To resize to a specific pixel value, select the image or video and enter the desired width or height in the toolbar.
Guides
Guides appear to help size and align your media width with other media on the page.
Convert to pixel
Media items added to a page before the switch to pixel-based resizing will still use the old percentage-based sizing. To resize these items, you must convert them to the new pixel-based sizing. To do this, either drag the handle to resize the item or select the Convert to pixels button in the toolbar.
Media items that need to be converted will have a yellow dot in their top-right corner.
Image and video settings
When you select an uploaded image or video, a floating toolbar appears. You can use this toolbar to:
Add a caption — Add more information about the image or video. The text size and alignment can't be changed, but you can apply other formatting.
Border options — Add borders and change their color and size.
Image alignment — Determine how the image or video is aligned on the page
Text wrapping — Let text flow around your image or video.
Width and Height — Set the width or height of an image or video.
Link (images only) — Add a link to a Confluence page or an external URL.
Alt text — Add supplemental text accompanying an image or video for all users. Alt text can help add more context and meaning to the image or video and can be very effective in assisting users of all types to understand the image or video better.
File settings
When you insert a file into a page, it will appear as an inline tile or a thumbnail. You can use the floating toolbar to control the following:
Change view — Display the file inline or as a thumbnail.
Preview — Open the file in viewer mode
Download — Download the file to your computer or device.
Social video and image sharing
The Widget connector macro displays live content from YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, and other sites. You can paste the URL onto your page for YouTube and Vimeo links, and it will automatically convert into a playable video.
Browse through the complete list of macros to see what other cool things you can add to your Confluence page, from statuses to roadmaps.
Tables
To add a table, select Table in the toolbar. A three-column, three-row table (including a header row) will appear on the page.
When you have large tables with many rows, the header row becomes “sticky” and doesn't scroll out of view when editing or viewing the page. This doesn't work, however, if you've merged several rows to create a bigger header row.
The width of each column is set to a percentage of the table width, so your columns will grow or shrink as your table size changes. If your table is full-width or has many columns, it can become scrollable horizontally.
When viewing a table on a page, you can sort the content by selecting the sort icons in the header row. Your sorting choices don’t impact what other people see and are not saved.
You can't have a table within a list, block quotes, or another table.
Resize a table
To resize a table:
Locate the resize handle on the right side of the table.
Drag the resize handle to the desired width.
The columns in the table will proportionally grow or shrink to fit the new width of the table.
Guides
Guides appear to help align your table width with other content on the page. You can also use guides to set your table width to one of the following three widths:
Centered
Wide
Full-width
Edit a table
Table editing tools are contextual and vary based on where you place your focus.
Select an entire table by placing focus in the top left. This can be useful if you want to copy and paste the whole table somewhere else.
Table options
When you're editing a page and have selected some portion of the table, table options will appear. Use table options to:
Make a row a header row with a grey shaded background and bold text
Make a column a header column with a grey shaded background and bold text
Insert a numbered column to automatically number each row
In a cell (or when selecting multiple cells, rows, or columns), select the down arrow to access the following actions:
Change cell color
Insert column to the right
Insert row below
Remove column
Remove row
Merge cells
Split cell
Distribute columns
Clear cells
Rows
Hover over the dot on the left of a table and select the + to insert a row below it
Select any of the table's cells, then select the leftmost edge. This will highlight the whole row and display an X, which allows you to delete the row.
Merged rows must be split before you can delete them.
Hold Shift and select the leftmost edge of another row to remove multiple rows at once.
Columns
Hover over the dot on the top and select the + to insert a column to the right
Select any of the table's cells, then select the topmost edge. This will highlight the whole column and display an X, which allows you to delete the column.
Merged columns must be split before you can delete them.
Hold Shift and select the topmost edge of another column to remove multiple columns at once.
Delete a table
Remove a table completely by selecting the trashcan icon in the floating table toolbar.
Table visualization
Visualize table data as dynamic pie, bar, or line charts to make information easier to review, monitor, and present.
To insert a chart based on table data:
Select some part of the table.
From the floating toolbar, select Insert chart.
You can create multiple charts from the same table by selecting Insert chart again (after re-selecting the source table).
You can adjust the width of charts to be centered, wide, or full width.
To remove a chart, select it and then the trashcan icon in the floating toolbar. This will not delete the source table.
A chart created from your table is linked to that table, so changes you make to the table will be reflected in the chart. Select the chart and then select Edit source from the floating toolbar to jump to the source table and make updates.
A source table must be on the same page or blog as its visualizations. Deleting a table breaks any charts created from it. However, if you cut the table and then paste it back on the same page, the charts will regenerate).
If you want to show a chart but hide the source table, you can add an Expand macro to the page and then cut the source table, pasting it inside the expand.
Chart options
You have several options when deciding what data is displayed and how it is presented after you insert a chart.
Select your chart.
Select Chart options from the floating toolbar.
Select the type of chart you want.
Select the table column you want to use for the x-axis of the chart.
Select the other table columns you want to represent on the cart as data.
Select Aggregate data to combine values into a single data point when multiple rows have the same value.
Each chart type has its own unique customizations.
Bar chart | Line chart | Pie chart | |
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Style |
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Title |
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Legend |
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Layouts
The layout of your pages can have a big influence on how they're read, and what visual impact your content has. Narrower columns, for example, optimize for readability, with around 50-75 characters per line, but wider page widths work better for displaying tabular data.
You can create different layouts in Confluence after inserting a default layout using the Layouts tool, giving different parts of your page a different column configuration.
There are several column layouts available. After inserting a layout, you can easily switch between the options. Content doesn't get lost when you change the column layout; additional columns are added to the right, and when you change to a layout with fewer columns, the content moves to the left. This replaces the add, remove, and move section functionality of the legacy editor.
Layouts can be moved from the page by selecting the trash can icon in the floating toolbar.
Legacy editor
This section provides the details for adding formatting to your page using the legacy editor.
Layouts
The layout of your pages can have a big influence on how they're read, and what visual impact your content has. Narrower columns, for example, optimize for readability, with around 50-75 characters per line, but wider page widths work better for displaying tabular data.
You can create different layouts in Confluence with the section tool, giving each section a different column configuration.
To use sections, choose the Page Layout button in the toolbar. This will cause the Page Layout toolbar to appear.
Add a section: Adds a new section below your current content, with the boundaries of the section(s) indicated by dotted lines (the dotted lines aren't visible when you view the page).
Column layouts: Changes the column layout of the section in which you have your cursor. Content doesn't get lost when you change the column layout; additional columns are added to the right, and when you change to a layout with fewer columns, the content moves to the left.
Move a section: Moves the section you have your cursor in, along with all the content in it, above or below other sections on the page.
Remove section: Removes the section you had your cursor in, deleting that section and all of its contents.
Very wide tables
The width of each column is set to a percentage of the page width, so your columns will grow or shrink as your page size changes. If a column includes an item that's too wide for it, you'll see a horizontal scroll bar when viewing the page. If you want to avoid this, set your images to original size, which scales them to fit.
Text
Confluence has all the standard formatting options you'd see in any other word processing software. Play around with italics, bold, and underline to add emphasis to your text, or change the color, indentation, or alignment. In addition to those, here are some other formatting tools you can use:
Emphasize a quote by changing the style of that text from paragraph to quote.
Quotes look like this.
Separate sections of text using the horizontal line divider. You can find this under the insert more menu.
Use the date picker by typing //and picking your date.
Mention someone by using @ and their name. The user you mention will receive a notification, so you can use this to let them know to read the page, or to draw their attention to a specific comment.
Wrap text around your images by selecting an image, and clicking any of the align buttons twice. The first time will change the alignment, and the second time will cause the text to wrap around the image.
Use the code block macro to display source code in your page with syntax highlighting.
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<div style="color: green">
<p> This page needs more cats.</p>
</div>Too much info? If you want a page to display extra info for the people who need it, without cluttering it up for everyone else, try using expands.
You can find expands under the macro browser. Go to the insert more menu > other macros > expands.
Call attention to information using info, tip, warning, or note macros. These create a colored box surrounding your text.
Alternatively, use a panel macro. You can change the border, title, and background of the panel for a variety of looks.
Add tasks by using the button and mentioning another user. Whoever you first mention on that line is assigned the task.
These tasks will show up on the person’s tasks list under their profile, and they can tick them off when complete. The due dates will turn red if overdue. They can also filter by date, completion, and more. To reference tasks on another page, use the Task Report Macro.Use the Table of Contents Macro to generate a list of links pointing to the headings on the page. The list of links will appear wherever you add the macro, and will automatically update each time someone changes the wording of a heading.
Add emojis, symbols, or special characters. See the full list here.
Tables
To add a table, choose Insert table in the toolbar, then click a cell in the drop-down to set the number of columns and rows.
Edit your table
To make changes to your table, click inside any of the cells. This will cause the table tools to appear in the toolbar.
Here's a summary of the table tools:
Column width modes
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Rows
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Columns
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Cells
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Table
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When viewing a table on a page, you can sort it by clicking the sort icons in the header row.
Links
To insert a link on a page:
Select some text or an image, or position your cursor where you want to insert the link.
Choose Link on the toolbar or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+K.
Select a page, blog post or attachment, or enter an external URL (see Links and Anchors for how to link to particular types of content).
Enter or modify the link text. This is the text that will appear on the page. If this field is left blank, the page name or URL will be used as the link text.
Choose Insert.
You can also paste a URL directly onto your page. Confluence will automatically create the link, and if the URL is from a page on the current site, the page name will be set as the link text.
Images, videos, and gifs
If a photo is worth a thousand words, how many words is a gif worth?
Add an image or gif onto a Confluence page by choosing > Files and Images. Either upload your image or gif into Confluence, or display an image from another web page using its URL.
You can select the pixel size of your images, or choose original so that it fits to scale. If your image is too big for the column or page, it'll result in a horizontal scroll.
Drag and drop
Drag files, like images, multimedia, Office files and PDFs, from your computer and drop them directly into the editor. The contents of the file will be embedded into the page or blog post.
Multimedia
You can also display movies, animations and videos, and embed audio files on your Confluence page. Confluence supports Adobe Flash, MP3, MP4, and various other movie formats. Upload these using the multimedia macro.
Social video and image sharing
The Widget connector macro displays live content from YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, and other sites. For Youtube and Vimeo links, you can paste the URL onto your page, and it will automatically convert into a playable video.
Browse through the full list of macros to see what other cool things, from statuses to roadmaps, you can add to your Confluence page.