Confluence Editing Improvements
What's changing, and why?
Over the past few months, we’ve been working on a series of improvements that focuses on the content creation and editing experience. We’ve pored through hundreds of customer requests, feedback, and tickets. We’ve tested design after design. And we’re finally ready to release an updated editing experience that is:
Clean: A modern design that gives your work the space to shine (and you, the space to think)
Consistent: Standardized features, shortcuts, and experiences, so there’s less to learn, and it’s faster to master
Powerful: New integrations and templates to help you do more with your time
We hope this will help you - and any new members of your team - get up and running with Confluence fast, creating pages that look better and are easier to read (even on other devices), and feeling confident about the content you’re creating.
When will I see this?
For most customers, you’ll see this new editing experience when you create a new blog post or meeting notes. We've also made the new editing experience available as a template, so you can try it out and familiarize yourself with it in your own time.
When will this replace the current editing experience?
We started releasing this in late Feb, but we're rolling out gradually to only a small number of sites at a time.
We'll give you at least 6 weeks notice before this rolls out to your site, so keep an eye out for emails and in-app notifications. We're starting with smaller, simpler sites first, before moving onto more active, complex sites.
For now, this will only apply to new pages that you create. Existing pages will continue to use the old editing experience.
I want this now
Contact our Support team to opt in for an early release. We'll let you know if your site is eligible and turn this on for you right now.
New and updated features
This is what's out so far, but there's more to come. Questions? Feedback? Let us know on Community, and we'll help you out.
Extend page content to full-width
You may want your readers to comfortably read a lot of information without scrolling as they read.
You can easily toggle on full-width when editing a page so that all page elements utilize the full-width of your horizontal space.
Pages are fixed-width by default. The benefit of fixed-width content is that your content will look the same regardless of what screen it’s viewed on. When using full-width, the text and other page elements respond to the screen size.
Control the width of page elements
You may decide that some of your page elements need more horizontal space while other elements work well at a fixed-width. You can control the width of tables and most macros using three options - wide, full-width, or fixed-width.
Control page layouts
The ability to insert page layouts has moved to the main toolbar to give you more control over the structure and presentation of your page. You still have the option to insert a layout by typing /layouts, which adds the two-column layout that can be modified after insertion.
We also added a few new layout types and the ability to control the width of the layout on the page, which you can extend to wide or full-width as needed.
Actions that have moved
While we were adding the ability to take all the contents of a page to full-width, we explored the most commonly used editing actions and made these improvements:
Shifted the page Permissions action closer to the Publish button. Those actions are most likely to happen when making the content available for others.
Grouped page-level actions like Move Page and Add Labels under the three dots ( … ) menu as those aren’t as crucial when editing a page. You’ll be better equipped to determine the page’s location and labels after you're done working with the page content.
Before
After
Auto-convert internal links
Paste in a link to another Confluence page, and we’ll automatically convert the URL to display that page’s title.
Image effects
In addition to being able to control the alignment of images when editing a page, you can do the following:
Wrap text around the left or right side of the image.
- Annotate images by adding text, inserting shapes and lines, using brushes, or adding a blur to a certain area.
Better content handling with updates for readability
We've made a range of smaller improvements to make it easier for you to scan and read through pages.
Fixed-width layouts are set at a line length that’s optimized for readability.
New fonts have been chosen for optical precision and improved legibility at smaller sizes, with wider tracking and larger negative spaces.
Line heights have been increased as per accessibility guidelines so it's easier to track a line of text.
The padding around macros and images has been increased to prevent content from crowding together.
What you see is (actually) what you get - featuring live macro previews
We’ve done away with page previews - instead, your page now looks the same while editing as it does when it’s published. That means the same formatting, same layouts, and most importantly, the grey macro placeholders have been replaced by live macro previews.
Updated keyboard shortcuts, autocomplete, and full Markdown support
Instead of remembering different autocomplete shortcuts for different types of content, you now need to remember only one: the slash command. Type / to open a list of macros and other content that you can add to your page as you go.
Keyboard shortcuts have also been updated to be the same as industry standards, so many of our keyboard shortcuts will now be the same as in the other apps you use. To see the full list, type CMD + / (Mac) or CTRL + / (Windows).
For those of you who prefer using markup languages, you can type or paste in Markdown, and we’ll convert it into fully formatted content as you go.
Consolidated features and contextual controls
We’ve cleaned up the toolbars and consolidated features so there’s less to distract you, and if you’re new to Confluence, it’s easier to learn the basics.
Options that apply to a single feature, like all the table controls or image options, now appear in context - either in floating menus or in the feature itself. That means you don’t see them until you need them, and when you do need them, everything’s right there without you having to search.
Responsive images
Images now resize to a grid, which lets you set an image size in relation to your page. Then, if you view the page on a different-sized screen, the image will also resize to maintain the same proportions. You can change an image’s size by dragging the handles at its sides.
Tables
No need to search or go elsewhere - table options are now all in context.
Borders: Add or remove rows and columns
Floating menu: Add a numbered column, or a header row or column
Dropdown: Cell level actions like changing the background color or merging cells
Arrows: Change the table’s width
Code formatting
Code blocks now have line numbers, indentation support, and bracket autocompletion - so you can type your code directly into Confluence, format it neatly, and keep track of each line.
To add a code block, choose 
from the toolbar > code block or do it in markdown by typing ``` when you're editing a page.
Full suite of unicode emojis and custom emoji uploads
We've added the full suite of unicode emojis to Confluence, as well as the ability to upload your own. Now, when words just aren't enough, try one of these instead: 😵 🥨 👏🏾 😍
New templates! (And updates to existing templates)
You now have 4 new templates, each featuring formatted content, instructional text, and relevant macros to help you get your work done without having to start from scratch.
Existing templates have also gotten a facelift, and there’ll be more templates coming in the future. Check them all out in the template gallery.
Other changes
Capture decisions as they're made by creating them on a Confluence page:
Type <> to create a decision.
Record what you've decided, such as "Team standup time is now at 10am."
@mention other teammates who you want to keep informed, and they'll receive a notification.
- The link modal has been replaced with an inline link browser. Select the text you want to link, click the icon from the toolbar, and paste in the URL you want to link to.
Actions are the new name for tasks. These work exactly the same as tasks have in the past, but have been given a facelift to make them more visually distinctive. Actions assigned to you will show up in your profile, under your task list.
Anchors
The anchor macro is temporarily unavailable, but there are two workarounds for this:
Add a table of contents macro to your page, as this automatically generates anchor links for each page header.
To find those links, right-click (or on mobile, long-press) any of the headers in the table of contents, and copy the link address.Anchors are automatically generated for each page header.
To link to one, use the https://pageURL#headingtext. The anchor text must be formatted as it is on the page, including punctuation marks, but without spaces.For example, to link to this section, we would add #Anchors to the page URL, like so: https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/ConfCloud/Confluence+Cloud+Editor+Roadmap#Anchors
Feedback
Tell us what you think
Send us your thoughts via the Feedback button, which appears on the bottom right of your Confluence page while you're editing.
Include as much detail as possible to help us understand how these changes are affecting you. We read every customer comment, even when we can't respond to all of them.
Report a bug
Something looking not quite right? Submit a support ticket and our engineer-detectives will investigate.
Not sure if it's a bug or if the feature has just changed? Check out our roadmap page for a list of deprecated and changed features, as well as to keep an eye on what's coming soon.
Note: Many 3rd party apps (that is, macros that have been downloaded from the Marketplace) are experiencing additional bugs in the new editing experience. We are working on fixing these, and have avoided rolling the experience out to new pages for the sites affected.
Join the discussion
We're posting on Atlassian Community with each major release. Come join the discussion.