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Embedded Excel (IFRAME) not visible to others

Trevor Coolidge

When I embed an Excel file into a live document using the IFRAME primitive, I am able to see the contents:

But the team members all see this:

It looks like some permissions error, but I don't even know what to ask our IT group to do. Anyone have any good ideas?

Accepted answers

Liam Do - DevSamurai

Hi @Trevor Coolidge

Welcome to the community!

This issue is typically caused by the sharing permissions on the Excel file in OneDrive or SharePoint.

The embed works for you because you're the owner, but team members lack access to the underlying file, resulting in a blank frame for them.

Recommended steps to resolve:

Open the Excel file in OneDrive/SharePoint.
Click Share > Select Anyone with the link (or "People in [your organization] with the link" if internal-only).
Generate a fresh embed code: Go to File > Share > Embed > Copy the provided <iframe> code.
In Confluence, edit the page and replace the existing iframe (in the HTML macro) with the new one.

After updating, ask a team member to perform a hard refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R or Cmd+Shift+R) and check the page.

Hope it helps 🙌

All comments

Liam Do - DevSamurai

Hi @Trevor Coolidge

Welcome to the community!

This issue is typically caused by the sharing permissions on the Excel file in OneDrive or SharePoint.

The embed works for you because you're the owner, but team members lack access to the underlying file, resulting in a blank frame for them.

Recommended steps to resolve:

Open the Excel file in OneDrive/SharePoint.
Click Share > Select Anyone with the link (or "People in [your organization] with the link" if internal-only).
Generate a fresh embed code: Go to File > Share > Embed > Copy the provided <iframe> code.
In Confluence, edit the page and replace the existing iframe (in the HTML macro) with the new one.

After updating, ask a team member to perform a hard refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R or Cmd+Shift+R) and check the page.

Hope it helps 🙌

KD - Ricksoft

Hello @Trevor Coolidge

Like Liam mention, this usually ends up being a permissions issue on the SharePoint/OneDrive side.

Another option you could consider, if you’d prefer to avoid dealing with external permissions altogether, is using a third-party app like Excel-like Tables for Confluence. It lets you pull the attached Excel file directly into the page and work with it there, instead of embedding it from an external source.

This is how the app looks like in your confluence page:

Screenshot 2025-12-12 at 11.31.07 AM.png

If the file is already attached to the page, you can open it directly inside Confluence and work with it through a full spreadsheet editor. It behaves very much like the regular Excel, so you can perform your regular excel operation without needing to jump out to another tool or rely on external systems.

Everyone who has access to the Confluence page can view and edit it immediately, which usually makes things easier for teams because everything stays in one place and you don’t run into the permission problems that happen with embedded files.

You can view their documentation here

I hope this helps

Kind Regards
KD

Piyush Annadate _ACE Pune_

Hello @Trevor Coolidge ,
Welcome to the Community !
The file is an excel within the confluence page as attachment - right?

KD - Ricksoft

Kris Klima _K15t_

Hi @Trevor Coolidge and welcome to the Community.

Where is that file located?

If you're linking to a shared document, it would be visible to people who have access. to that file. But you mileage may vary depending how people access the file and Confluence.

Example - I used to embed a lot of Google spreadsheets and Slides. The Confluence site and the Google drive were all under the same SSO login so if the person was logged in to BOTH systems, the logins were resolved in the browser.

Barbara Szczesniak

@Trevor Coolidge Welcome to the Atlassian community.

I haven't tried this myself, but, looking through some similar questions in the community, it looks like this may have something to do with where your Excel file is located, with the main requirement that the location of the file and your Confluence instance being in the same SAML SSO setup. (see https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Confluence-questions/Can-you-embed-an-excel-file-to-a-confluence-space-and-modify-it/qaq-p/2784033 and https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Confluence-questions/Is-there-a-way-to-display-an-Excel-page-in-a-confluence-page/qaq-p/2886446)

I believe that @Kris Klima _K15t_ also posted an article on how to embed files like this (but maybe it was about PowerPoint files?).

John Funk

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