Support for math equations in Confluence and Jira in the built-in text editor

Question

Requesting built-in support for math equations in Confluence, and ideally Jira descriptions as well.

We are a chemical process engineering company, one point of resistance to adopting Atlassian tools across the company is the lack of built-in support for math equations.

The standard office tools provide built-in support, Confluence does not.  Once the equation is built in the office tool, it's possible to add it to Confluence as a screen capture, but that isn't editable or searchable.

I know that there are 3rd party add-ins with additional costs and restrictions; these would provide less-than-desirable paths forward.

Could we please have a built-in, supported solution?

Thanks.

Scott B.

Gabriela - LeanZero · Answer

Your reading of that ticket is right, and there are better ones to put your weight behind.

CLOUD-3048 is Closed as Won't Fix, it was raised in 2010, it carries 8 votes, and its title is "Include the LaTeX plugin", so it really was asking Atlassian to bundle somebody else's tool rather than build one. It sits in the CLOUD project, Atlassian Cloud, rather than in JSM, but that doesn't change your point.

Atlassian also states your premise itself, and recently. CONFCLOUD-84292, touched on 3 August this year, says in its own description: "Confluence Cloud does not natively support LaTeX formulas, this is only possible via Vendor Apps in the Atlassian Marketplace". So you aren't arguing against a documented feature that you've somehow missed. You're asking for one that Atlassian confirms doesn't exist.

The live requests for exactly what you described are CONFCLOUD-78459, "Add support for math expressions and formulas in Confluence", which is Under Consideration on 89 votes, and CONFCLOUD-30543, "Ability to insert math formulas/equations in Confluence", Gathering Interest on 139. The two states are not equivalent, and the tracker says so itself. Hover 78459's status and it reads "We are looking into this suggestion and believe it to be a strong candidate for our roadmap." Hover 30543's and you get "This suggestion needs more unique domain votes and comments before being reviewed by our team." So 78459 is where I'd start, fewer votes and all. For the Jira half of your ask there's JRACLOUD-97287, Gathering Interest, and it sits on 2 votes, so it's barely on anyone's radar.

Unique domain is the operative phrase in that second one. A chemical process engineering firm saying MS Word on a network drive is currently beating Confluence counts for more than another vote from a company already in the tally, and that comment is the part only you can add.

Scott Boyden · Answer

Kris:

Lack of native math equation support helps justify our process engineering team continuing to use MS Word with files on a shared network drive as opposed to a searchable knowledge base/repository that can also be used as a source for project and product documentation.

Their position:  Why use two tools when one, in this case MS-Word (with no structure/organization), will do to get the immediate work done?

The LaTeX macro is an option, but it's also another learning-curve.

We can't make a strong push to move to Confluence with this, and a few other limitations.

Kristian Klima · Answer

Hi @Scott Boyden

It'd be nice to add this or that functionality - and Atlassian is doing that, sherlocking apps left and right. But Confluence is not positioned as a standard office tool.

For specific features, there are apps, this has always been the model. It's like a smartphone - apps lend it additional functionality.

Having said that... there are free apps that provide LaTeX formula functionality - at no extra cost. And as apps integrate directly into Confluence, they become a part of it. A macro is a macro is a macro.