Column widths involuntary changing

[Italo Romani de Oliveira]

Hi, I am using Confluence Cloud and editing long documentation pages. I have a page which, every time I click on "Edit", just by doing that, column widths change wildly, becoming very narrow and messing up the layout. It's very counter-productive having to adjust many tables in the page every time I want to do small edits in the text.

[Italo Romani de Oliveira]

Thanks for the hint! Actually, the width options are "Narrow", "Wide" and "Max". My page was on "Wide", I changed it to "Narrow" and this did the trick.

Ítalo 

[James Gamble]

Hola Italo,

I’d first check whether the page is using full-width and whether the tables are set to scale automatically.

Confluence has newer table controls that let you set custom table widths and fixed column widths. If the table uses the default scalable behavior, opening the page in edit mode can cause the editor to recalculate the table width, especially on long or full-width pages.

I’d try this on one affected table first: Edit the page, click inside the table, open the table options from the floating toolbar, and look for the column width behavior. If you see an option for fixed column widths, turn it on, then manually adjust the table/columns again. Publish the page, then reopen it in edit mode and see if the widths hold.

Atlassian’s table width update is here: https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Confluence-articles/Resize-Confluence-tables-to-any-width/ba-p/2483925

They also announced fixed column widths here: https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Confluence-articles/%EF%B8%8F-Confluence-tables-power-up-with-left-alignment-and-more/ba-p/2732876

I’d also test the same page in the default page width instead of full width. If the table behaves normally at default width but collapses at full width, the issue is likely tied to the editor resizing/scaling the table between view and edit mode.

Thanks,

James

[Italo Romani de Oliveira]

The page was set to "Wide" in the width options. When I changed it to "Narrow", the problem was solved. 

Thanks,

Ítalo

[Dan Breyen]

Hi @Italo Romani de Oliveira looking on Atlassian's Jira Site I found a work item that may be related: CONFCLOUD-84298 

Have you seen this behavior on multiple pages?  Do others see the same thing?  Have you tried a different browser?  Just trying to eliminate some variables.

Does it happen if you use different width settings of the page?

Can you provide some screenshots or an example?  If you can reproduce it, with your premium license, your system administrator can create a work item with Atlassian Support for assistance as well.

[Italo Romani de Oliveira]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the hint, but that work item does not match my problem. The problem was solved when I found the page width setting, following the lead of the response below.

Thanks,

Ítalo

[Germán Morales _ Hiera]

Hi @Italo Romani de Oliveira , this is the known Confluence Cloud behaviour where the editor rescales table columns, and it's almost always tied to the page being set to full width: the editor canvas is narrower than the full-width published view, so on Edit the columns collapse to fit and your sizing is lost. The simplest fix is to switch that page back to the default fixed width, so the edit and view widths match and the columns stop jumping. If you genuinely need it wide, use Confluence's Custom Table Widths to set and lock each column, which now holds even on full-width pages. If it still resets after that, you're hitting the open platform bug rather than anything in your setup. More on the width controls: resize Confluence tables to any width.