Anchors are used to enable links to a specific location on a page. Anchor links can be especially useful when navigating between sections of a long document, or when you want to link to a segment of a page instead of the top of the page.

Anchors are invisible to the reader when the page is displayed.

There are two steps to using an anchor:

  1. Create an anchor on the page.
  2. Create a link to the anchor.

Creating an anchor

Use the Anchor macro to mark the location you want to link to.

  1. Add the Anchor macro to a page.
    1. In the Confluence editor, choose Insert > Other Macros.
    2. Find and select the required macro.

    Speeding up macro entry with autocomplete:

    Type { and the beginning of the macro name, to see a list of suggested macros. Details are in Using Autocomplete.

    To edit an existing macro: Click the macro placeholder and choose Edit. A macro dialog window will open, where you can edit the parameters of the macro.

  2. Specify the name of your anchor. For example, 'bottom' or 'important information'. See the 'Anchor Name' parameter described below.

On this page:

Related pages:

Macro options (parameters)

Parameters are options that you can set to control the content or format of the macro output.

Parameter

Default

Description

Anchor Name

None

This is the anchor name that you will use when creating the link.

  • The anchor name can include spaces. Confluence will remove the spaces automatically when building a URL that points to this anchor.
  • The anchor name is case sensitive. You must use the same pattern of upper and lower case letters when creating the link as you used when creating the Anchor macro.

Creating a link to an anchor

You can link to an anchor from:

  • A page on the same Confluence site. The link may be on the same page as the anchor, another page in the same space, or a page in another space on the same Confluence site.
  • Another web page or another Confluence site, using a specifically formatted URL.

To link to an anchor from within the same Confluence site:

  1. Select some text or position your cursor where you want to insert the link.
  2. Choose Link on the toolbar or press Ctrl+K.

  3. Choose Advanced and enter the anchor name in the Link field following the format below.

    Anchor locationLink syntax for anchorExamples
    Same page#anchor name

    #bottom

    #important information

    Page in same spacepage name#anchor name

    My page#bottom

    My page#important information

    Page in different spacespacekey:page name#anchor name

    DOC:My page#bottom

    DOC:My page#important information

    The anchor name is case sensitive. You must use the same pattern of upper and lower case letters as you used when creating the Anchor macro. 

  4. Enter or modify the Link Text - this is the text that will appear on the page. If this field is left blank, the page name or URL will be used as the link text..
  5. Choose Insert.

Screenshot: The 'Advanced' option in the link dialog

To link to an anchor from another web page or another Confluence site:

Use a full URL in the following format:

Link syntax

Examples

http://myconfluence.com/display/spacekey/pagename#pagename-anchorname

http://myconfluence.com/display/DOCS/My+page#Mypage-bottom

http://myconfluence.com/display/DOCS/My+page#Mypage-importantinformation

Notes about the full URL:

  • The page name is repeated in the URL, after the # sign. The second occurrence of the page name is concatenated into a single word, with all spaces removed.
  • There is a single dash (hyphen) between the concatenated page name and the anchor name.
  • The anchor name in the full URL is concatenated into a single word, with all spaces removed.
  • The anchor name is case sensitive. You must use the same pattern of upper and lower case letters as you used when creating the Anchor macro.

Code examples

See:

Notes

  • Table of contents on page: Consider using the Table of Contents Macro to generate a list of links pointing to the headings on the page. The list of links will appear on the page, and will be automatically updated each time someone changes the wording of a heading.
  • Linking to headings: You can link directly to the headings of a page. See Working with Links. However, if someone changes the wording of a heading, those direct links will be broken. Use the Anchor macro to ensure a lasting link within the body of a page.
  • Site welcome message: If you are adding an anchor to a page that you are using in the site welcome message, you can only link to that anchor from another page. Internal links within that page will not work.
  • Templates: When you are previewing a template, a link to an anchor is displayed as a 'broken' link. However, when you create a page using the template the resulting page will have the correct link.
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