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 and Close buttons were moved to the top right in the new editor.

New editor

Legacy editor

You have the option to switch from the New editor to the Legacy editor by using the Legacy editor template on the right sidebar of a new page.

New editor

This section provides the following details for creating, editing, and publishing content using the new editor.

Text
Links
Images, videos, and .gifs
Tables
Layouts

To learn more about inserting basic elements like dates and statuses, see Insert elements into a page.

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.

To indent, use the indent button on the toolbar or your tab key. To outdent, use the outdent button on the toolbar or your shift + tab key combination. These actions work for blocks of text or for bulleted and numbered lists.

The formatting tools found in the new editor

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 selecting the Files & images button on the toolbar. Either upload your image or gif into Confluence, or display an image from another web page using its URL. You can drag images to resize.

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.

Image settings

Whenever you put focus on an image, the floating toolbar appears.

The floating image toolbar in the new Confluence editor

You can control the following:

Add a caption — Add more information about the image. The text size and alignment can't be changed, but you can apply other formatting.
Image alignment — Determine how the image is aligned on the page
Text wrapping — Let text flow around your images by selecting an image and clicking Wrap left or Wrap right from the floating toolbar.
Link — Add a link to a Confluence page or to an external URL so that page viewers can click the image to navigate to the page you added.
Alt text — Add supplemental text that accompanies an image for all users. Alt text can be helpful in adding more context and meaning to the image and can be very effective in assisting users of all types to understand the image better.

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.

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.

Images and files occupy their own line in the new editor. It’s not possible to add an image within the flow of text. If an image is small enough, like a product icon, you can create a custom emoji and insert an image like that.

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.

The width selector to the right of the table lets you switch between centered, wide, and full-width. All tables are responsive and scale to the screen size that provides the best view.

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 page width, so your columns will grow or shrink as your page size changes. If your table is full-width with many columns, it will 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.

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.

Select an entire table by placing focus on the top left

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

Change the appearance of your table by selecting table options in the floating toolbar.

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

When multiple cells are selected, you can change the background color of all the selected cells or merge the selected cells. If a cell was previously merged, you have the option to split the cell.

Transform your tables with a variety of options for every cell.

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.

When multiple columns are selected, you can select Distribute columns to make all of the columns you selected the same width. You can also select the entire table to resize all table columns.

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).

Insert a chart from your table data to visualize the information.

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.

Charts created from tables can be resized or removed.

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.

Table visualizations can be edited and the source table even hidden inside an 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.

You have many options for how table visualizations are presented.

Each chart type has its own unique customizations.

	Bar chart	Line chart	Pie chart
Style	Plot area height Data series (table headings) colors Chart orientation	Plot area height Data series (table headings) colors Show or hide data points Line smoothing Chart orientation	Plot area height Data series (table headings) colors
Title	Chart title, x-axis, y-axis	Chart title, x-axis, y-axis	Chart title
Legend	Show or hide the chart legend Legend position	Show or hide the chart legend Legend position	Show or hide the chart legend Legend position

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.

Inserted defaults within a layout in Confluence

Legacy editor

This section provides the details for adding formatting to your page using the legacy editor.

Layouts

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.

Page layout toolbar in the legacy Confluence editor

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.

<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 they become overdue. They can also filter by date, completion, and whether they were assigned to the, or created by the, from here. If he'd prefer to see these on another page, he can also 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

Responsive – The table will expand as you add content, and you can drag to resize the columns. It'll also resize itself to fit the page-viewer's window size (within reason).
Fixed width – Drag column borders to set width. Columns appear at your set size, regardless of content and window size.

Rows

Insert rows before or after the current row, or delete the current row
Cut, copy, and paste the current row
Mark a row as a header row (shaded with bold text); double click this to remove the header row.

Columns

Insert columns before or after the current column, or delete the current column
Cut, copy, and paste the current column
Mark a column as a header column (shaded with bold text); double click this to remove the header row

Cells

Merge selected cells or split selected cells
Change cell color

Table

Remove a table
Insert a numbering column to automatically number each row

When viewing a table on a page, you can sort it by clicking the sort icons in the header row.

Tables don't nest; you can't have a table within a list, block quotes, or another table.