Issue with Insert Excerpt Macro: Text Displays One Letter Per Line in Edit Mode

[E G]

Hello,

Last week, the Insert Excerpt macro worked properly in Confluence. However, today I noticed that when editing a page that contains this macro, its content appears incorrectly — each letter is displayed on a new line, making the excerpt unreadable.

This issue only occurs in the editing mode. When viewing the published page, everything looks normal. The problem affects the Insert Excerpt macro specifically, not Excerpt Include.

I haven’t made any changes to the page or the macro settings. Could you please advise what might be causing this issue and how to resolve it?

Thank you!

[Subhasis Das]

Hi,

This issue typically stems from a rendering bug introduced by recent updates in the Confluence editor — especially in cloud environments. When the Insert Excerpt macro content displays one letter per line in edit mode only, it's usually related to a temporary glitch in how the Confluence editor handles CSS or block-level formatting inside macros.

✅ Confirmed Behavior:

• Affects only the Insert Excerpt macro (not Excerpt Include)
• Appears broken only in edit mode
• Published/viewed page displays content correctly

🛠️ Suggested Workarounds:

1. Use the Legacy Editor (if available):
   If your instance supports it, switch the page to the legacy editor where macro rendering is often more stable.
2. Remove Extra Formatting Inside the Macro:
   • Edit the page.
   • Cut and paste the content of the Insert Excerpt macro into a plain text editor.
   • Strip any tables, line breaks, bullet styles, or inline macros.
   • Re-insert the cleaned content into the Insert Excerpt macro.
3. Wrap Text in a Paragraph Block (manually):
   • While editing the macro content, ensure the text is inside a single continuous paragraph.
   • Avoid pressing Enter multiple times or using Shift+Enter inside the macro.
4. Recreate the Macro:
   • Delete the affected Insert Excerpt macro block.
   • Re-insert a new Insert Excerpt macro.
   • Paste the cleaned content back into it.
5. Try Editing in Source Editor (if enabled):
   • If your admin has enabled the Source Editor plugin, you can inspect the storage format and fix any malformed tags.

🧩 Long-Term Fix:

This is likely a bug in the new editor or Confluence Cloud rendering engine. If it persists:

• Report it via Atlassian support with a reproducible sample.
• Reference the issue as tied to the Insert Excerpt macro rendering in RTE (Rich Text Editor).