When you create, edit or comment on a JIRA issue, some fields may display two small icons at the right of the text area: a blue screen (the 'Preview' icon) and a yellow question-mark (the 'Help' icon). The presence of these icons indicates that this field supports JIRA's Text Formatting Notation, allowing you to use rich-text features such as:

For example, to include an image in the field, you would first attach the image to the issue, then type the following into the field:

To preview what the field will look like after you save it, click the 'Preview' icon:

Click the 'Help' icon to see a popup window containing the Text Formatting Notation Help.

Using Macros

The JIRA Text Formatting Notation and macros will only be available if your JIRA administrator has configured the relevant renderers.

JIRA ships with the following macros:

Macro

Description

Enabled by default

Anchor Macro

Create an anchor that allows people to link to a specific point in a page. Usage:

{anchor:bookmark1}
... text here ...
[#bookmark1]

yes

Code Macro

Format blocks of source-code or XML. The default language is Java but you can specify JavaScript, ActionScript, XML, HTML and SQL too. Usage:

--- Java example ---
{code:title=Bar.java|borderStyle=solid}
// Some comments here
public String getFoo()
{
    return foo;
}
{code}
*--- XML example ---*
{code:xml}
<test>
  <another tag="attribute"/>
</test>
{code}

yes

Quote Macro

Generate blockquotes that may contain multiple paragraphs or complex markup. Usage:

{quote}
This is text from another source
{quote}

yes

No Format Macro

Create blocks of text where other wiki formatting is not applied. Usage:

{noformat}
This is text  \#&@!@(*!&*@()#*@\ \\
{macros} _wont_work_here
{noformat}

yes

Panel Macro

Draw a panel with the following optional parameters:

  • title: Title of the panel
  • borderStyle: The style of the border this panel uses (solid, dashed and other valid CSS border styles)
  • borderColor: The color of the border this panel uses
  • borderWidth: The width of the border this panel uses
  • bgColor: The background color of this panel
  • titleBGColor: The background color of the title section of this panel 
    {panel}Some text{panel}
{panel:title=My Title}Some text with a title{panel}
{panel:title=My Title| borderStyle=dashed| borderColor=#ccc| titleBGColor=#F7D6C1| bgColor=#FFFFCE}
a block of text surrounded with a *panel*
yet _another_ line
{panel}

true

Colour Macro

Change the colour of the contained text. Usage:

{color:red}
look ma, red text!
{color}

You can use any of the sixteen standard HTML colours ('aqua','black','blue','fuschia','green','gray','lime', 'maroon','navy','olive','purple','red','silver','teal','white','yellow'), or any hexadecimal colour code (e.g. '#336699').

yes

Lorem Ipsum Macro

Insert paragraphs of "lorem ipsum" space-filler text. Usage:

{loremipsum}

yes

HTML Macro

Use HTML code within a Jira Issue. Usage:

{html}
<p>You'll find a lot more in <A href="chapter2.html">chapter two</a>.
See also this <a href="../images/forest.gif">map of the enchanted forest.</A></p>
{html}

no