Why Does Rovo Duplicate Confluence Pages as XML? [Champion Slack Insider]

[#1]

This one from @Madhusudhan Matrubai catches people off guard:

“I asked Rovo to duplicate a Confluence page… and it recreated it in XML format.”

Let’s unpack what’s going on.

What happened

The request was straightforward:

• Duplicate a page
• Remove task items
• Rename it with a new date

Rovo:

• Created the page with the correct title
• But the content showed up as raw XML

Why this happens

This isn’t a permissions issue. It’s a formatting/rendering issue tied to how Confluence stores content. Confluence pages exist in different formats:

• Rendered view (what you see in the UI)
• Storage format (XML/structured content behind the scenes)

In this case:

Rovo pulled the storage-format version of the page instead of the rendered version. So instead of recreating readable content, it copied the underlying structure.

Why it feels inconsistent

Because it is.

Rovo is:

• Retrieving content
• Interpreting it
• Then rewriting it into a new page

Sometimes it:

• Uses rendered content (works as expected)
• Uses storage format (you get XML)

There’s no visible toggle controlling which path it takes.

What you can do today

If this happens:

1. Retry with a simpler prompt: Long or multi-step instructions increase the chance of format issues

2. Break the task into steps

• First: duplicate or summarize content
• Then: refine/remove sections

3. Paste specific content instead of referencing the whole page: This reduces ambiguity in retrieval

If it keeps happening

Capture:

• Timestamp
• Page URL
• Prompt used

Then open a Support ticket. This helps Atlassian trace:

• Which format was retrieved
• What happened during conversion

Champion takeaway

Rovo isn’t “duplicating” pages the way Confluence does natively. It’s:

• Reading content
• Reinterpreting it
• Rebuilding it

That works well for flexibility—but introduces variability.

When to use native duplication instead

If you need:

• Exact formatting
• Reliable structure
• No surprises

Use Confluence’s built-in [Copy page] feature.

Use Rovo when:

• You want to modify, summarize, or transform content