Configuring the Office Connector

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The Office Connector allows Confluence users to view, edit and import content from Microsoft Office and Open Office files attached to a page.

The Office Connector add-on is bundled with Confluence, but a System Administrator can enable or disable parts of the Office Connector and can configure options.

Enabling and disabling the Office Connector

If you want to limit access to all or part of the Office Connector you can disable the add-on, or some modules in the add-on.

To enable or disable the Office Connector modules:

  1. Go to  > Add-ons
  2. Choose System from the filter drop down and then search for Office Connector
  3. Expand the Office Connector add-on listing. From here you can: 
    • Choose Configure to specify preferences for the Office Connector (this opens the configuration screen described below)
    • Click Disable to disable all modules of the add-on
    • Expand the modules list to enable or disable selected Office Connector modules

Note: only some Office Connector modules can be disabled. Modules that are integral to the operation of the add-on cannot be disabled, and do not have an Enable or Disable button. Modules that can be disabled include the button and provide a brief, on-screen description of the module. 

Configuring the Office Connector Options

Users with System Administrator permissions can configure the behavior of the Office Connector. 

To set the configuration options for the Office Connector:

  1. Go to  > General Configuration > Office Connector
    Screenshot: Configuring the Office Connector options

     

  2. Set the configuration options as described in the table below

Option

Default Value

Description

Edit in word button locationPage action icon

Where the button for editing the content in Word is located. You can configure the button to appear in the page action icon or from the view page tab.

(warning) Note: This setting has no effect in the Confluence default theme.

Warnings: Show a warning before allowing a user to perform an import

Disabled

If this option is enabled, the user will receive a warning when importing a Word document. The warning will tell the user when they are about to overwrite existing content.

Advanced Formatting Options: Use the footnote macro for Word footnotes

Disabled

(warning) Note: This feature requires a third party add-on that is not supported for Confluence 5.x

If this option is enabled, a Confluence page created from an imported Word document will use the {footnote} macro from Adaptavist to render any footnotes contained in the document. Note that you will need to install the Footnotes add-on onto your Confluence site. For more information about this add-on and macro, please refer to the Footnotes add-on.

Authentication: Allow authentication tokens in the URL path

Disabled

If this option is enabled, the Office Connector will use authentication tokens in the URL.

This needs to be enabled to edit Office 2013 documents.

Temporary storage for viewfile macro

The Confluence Home directory.

The {viewfile} macro will cache data temporarily. This option allows you to set the location of the cache. Available settings are:

  • Confluence home directory – The temporary file will be stored in your Confluence Home directory.
  • A directory specified in the directories.properties file – You can specify a location by editing the Office Connector's directories.properties file:
    1. Locate the OfficeConnector-x.xx.jar file (where x.xx is the version number) in your Confluence Home directory and copy it to a temporary location
    2. Unzip the JAR file and find the resources/directories.properties file. The content of the file looks like this:

      #Complete the following line to set a custom cache directory.
      #If resetting to blank, don't delete anything before or including the '='
      com.benryan.confluence.word.edit.cacheDir=
    3. Edit the last line, adding the path to your required temporary location directly after the '=' character. For example:
      • On Windows:

        com.benryan.confluence.word.edit.cacheDir=c:\my\path\
        
      • On Linux:

        com.benryan.confluence.word.edit.cacheDir=/home/myusername/my/path
        
    4. Save the file, recreate the JAR and put it back in your Confluence Home directory, overwriting the original JAR.

Maximum file space for cache (MB)

500

This is the maximum size of the cache used by the {viewfile} macro. (See above.)

Number of Conversion Queues

6

This is the maximum number of threads used to convert PowerPoint, Excel files or PDF slide shows. You can use this setting to manage Confluence performance, by limiting the number of threads so that the Office Connector does not consume too many resources.

Click Manage Queues to view attachments that are still pending conversion.

Last modified on Jul 9, 2017

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