Office Connector Prerequisites

Viewing Office and PDF files

Office and PDF files are embedded onto a page using the View File Macro. The macro can display files compatible with Microsoft Office 97-2013, and PDF files, of the following types:

• .doc and .docx
• .xls and .xlsx
• .ppt and .pptx
• .pdf

You do not need to have an Office application installed on your computer in order to view Office files in Confluence.

Importing Word documents as pages

Confluence can import the content from Microsoft Word 97-2013 documents (.doc and .docx ).

Editing Office files attached to a page

The Office Connector allows you to edit Office files that are attached to pages.

You'll need to use a browser, operating system and application (either Microsoft Office or OpenOffice) as described in the compatibility matrix below.  

Here's a few common issues:

• Using Chrome? You can't edit Office documents as Chrome does not support WebDAV clients. See CONF-23322.
• Using Firefox? The WebDAV plugin required to edit Office documents can't be used with Firefox 57 (Quantum) or later, as Firefox has ended support for the technology it relies on. See CONFSERVER-52299 - Getting issue details... STATUS . Earlier versions of Firefox should still work with the Firefox Add-On for the Office Connector.
• Using Internet Explorer? You can only edit documents in Microsoft Office. OpenOffice is not supported.
• Using Mac OSX or Linux? You can only edit documents in OpenOffice. Microsoft Office is not supported. See CONF-17250.
• Special characters in the filename? Edit in Office does not work for files with special characters (like ' # @ €) in the filename. See CONF-22403 - Getting issue details... STATUS .

• Not seeing the Office Connector options? Your system administrator may have disabled all or part of the Office Connector.

  See Configuring the Office Connector.

Configuration matrix

You need one of the following software combinations to edit Office files from your Confluence page.

Note: The only known supported Office editor for Linux is OpenOffice. But in theory it should work with any WebDAV-aware application.

If you experience problems editing documents using the Office Connector (using an application, operating system and browser combination above) please raise an issue and tell us as much as you can about your operating system, application version, document version (if its different to the version of Office / Open Office you're using to open the document) and browser. 

Troubleshooting

Having problems with the Office Connector? 

• The WebDAV plugin must be enabled, because the Office Connector uses WebDAV to transfer information to and from Office documents. The WebDAV plugin is bundled with Confluence, and can be enabled or disabled by the System Administrator. If necessary, refer to the instructions on enabling plugins and configuring the WebDAV options.
• Ensure that your Confluence server's base URL is set correctly (see Configuring the Server Base URL to find out how to check this). When a user edits a Confluence page in Word and then uploads the page back to the Confluence server, the base URL determines where the document will be saved. If the base URL is incorrect, the documents may be saved to a different Confluence server.
• Using Office 2013? Your administrator will need to enable 'Allow authentication tokens in the URL path' in the Office Connector configuration. See Configuring the Office Connector.

See the Office Connector Limitations and Known Issues knowledge base article for more troubleshooting tips.