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Missing Image Captions

davis.smith

When I export a Confluence page to Word, every single Image in my image-heavy (107 images) software User Guide is missing its caption. I successfully exported this document to PDF last week, have made some changes and need to do it again. But downloading directly to PDF is not working. The workaround is to download to Word and PDF the Word file.

I don't use an off-the-wall, "creative," Heading 3 workaround to caption my images; I use Confluence's native, Add a caption functionality. Does anyone have any clue as to what's causing my image captions to disappear? Thanks!

Accepted answers

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Chris Rainey

Hi there,

Can you shed more information on what you mean by "downloading directly to PDF is not working"? Are you getting an error? Does the file never actually download?

Josh

Hi, the captions part of your report matches a known Confluence Cloud bug: CONFCLOUD-84787 — Image captions are missing from HTML and Word export (Gathering Impact). Native captions added with Confluence's "Add a caption" control are dropped from both Word and HTML export. Atlassian currently lists no workaround for that behaviour.

So if Word export is your bridge to PDF, captions will stay missing until that ticket is fixed. Voting and watching CONFCLOUD-84787 is the way to get notified.

On the direct "Export to PDF" path: that's a separate exporter, and last week it worked for you. If it fails now, the usual causes are a page that's too large (107 images is a lot), a macro the PDF renderer doesn't like, or a transient export error. Useful checks:

Space settings > Look and feel / PDF export — try exporting again and note the exact error or whether the job sits in "Generating" forever.
Duplicate the page, delete half the images, and try PDF on the copy. If that works, the original is hitting a size/timeout limit rather than a caption bug.
Publish any unpublished changes before exporting.

If you can share what "downloading directly to PDF is not working" looks like (error text, hang, empty file), we can narrow that second half. For captions specifically, though, Word isn't going to restore them until CONFCLOUD-84787 lands.

Tomislav Tobijas

@davis.smith are you using a single-page PDF export or are you exporting things from space settings? Differences can be found here: Export a space's content as Word, PDF, or data files 📚

I know one of my colleagues also had an issue with PDF exported a couple of weeks ago, but it seemed to be just a small hiccup rather than permission or bigger system issue 👀 Things started working again after a day or 2.

And as Josh said, captions will be missing and are not supported in Word export as it seems 🫤

Exporting wasn't strongest side/feature of Confluence and I guess that's why a lot of people turn to Marketplace solutions if they need to regularly export their content.

Chees,
Tobi

Sami Shaik

@davis.smith ,

@Josh has the ticket (CONFCLOUD-84787), so I tested the other half today on my own site so you know which exporter to fight with. One page, one image, native "Add a caption":

Export to Word: caption gone, as you see.
Export to PDF (the built-in one): caption present under the image.

So the two exporters really are different code paths, and the PDF one is the only one that keeps your 107 captions today. That changes the plan: instead of routing through Word, make the direct PDF export work again. The usual reason a PDF export that worked last week fails after edits is size: the renderer has a limit on how much it will process in one job, and 107 images plus new content can cross it silently, where the job just never finishes. Two ways through:

Export the page tree instead of the page. Split the guide into a parent with three or four child pages (chapters), then use Space settings → Export space → PDF with only those pages selected. The space exporter builds one PDF from several pages, keeps captions, and each page stays under the per-page limit.
Shrink the images, not the count. Re-upload any screenshot over about 1 MB at a lower resolution; the exporter's problem is bytes rendered, not image count. Test on a copy first: duplicate the page, halve the images, export, and you will see whether size is the cause in five minutes.

Keep voting on CONFCLOUD-84787 for the Word path, but for this release, PDF direct is the route with captions. Tested 29 September 2026 on Confluence Cloud.

davis.smith

Hi Chris,

Thanks for responding.

My incorrect terminology reflects, in part, over 25 years using Word vs. 16 months with Confluence. I'm referring to the Confluence process of Exporting to PDF, which, when functioning properly, places a file in my Downloads folder. At the moment, choosing Export to PDF produces nothing, not even an error. Choosing Export to Word gives me a Word version of my Confluence file, as expected, minus the captions for all 107 (in this case) images.

davis.smith

Hi Josh,

Thanks for responding and confirming that this is something others are seeing AND for the CC bug # to follow.

As for 107 images being a lot, I agree. But that's how I've been creating user documents since 1997. Confluence is the most feature-rich application I've seen, my favorite to use. But if Confluence can't handle the documents I create, I guess I'll have to find something less fancy that can.

davis.smith

Thanks, Tobi.

My document has a page-count in the 70s, so single-page PDF isn't viable.

The only reason I'm exporting to Word is because exporting directly to PDF is not working, still (I just tried again.) The error I get is less than descriptive, which is not uncommon with real-time error messages: "Something went wrong. An unexpected error occurred. Give it another try, or check back in a bit." No error number, nothing.

In general, I have an aversion to the Marketplace options. I know they're there and that's really cool, but my company has already paid or is paying a boat-load of cash to Atlassian for Confluence and Jira. I'm not going to ask my boss to pay more money for a functionality that we've already paid for. Engineers (for whom I work), in general, already consider documentation a necessary evil; asking for more money will NOT improve my standing.

Davis

davis.smith

Hi Sami,

The only reason I'm trying the Export to Word function is because Export to PDF isn't working. The workaround to the problem process works. but only until it introduces a different problem, as you've noted.

Thanks for your help. You've given me some options. I feel for Atlassian/Confluence, but it doesn't help my current situation and isn't stopping me from looking for other, more reliable options. Confluence works great until it doesn't. This is just a peripheral function, but it's important when you need it.

Tomislav Tobijas

@davis.smith I completely get it! I was in a similar situation a while back 😅

Are you on a free or paid plan of Confluence? In both cases, I'd suggest reaching out to Atlassian Support to check on the issue with PDF exports you're experiencing atm. If you're on the free plan, though, you could start a free trial of the Standard or Premium plan and raise a ticket. Once you get that sorted, just switch back to the free plan (that's how I do it for some of my instances 😄)

Numeric Oasis

The captions question looks settled above, so this is about the part still blocking you: Export to PDF producing nothing at all. Two open bugs fit a single very long, image heavy page, and neither has come up in the thread yet.

CONFCLOUD-83348, "PDF Export Fails with Timeout on Large Legacy Confluence Pages", is the closer match. The export exceeds an operation timeout on large pages while smaller pages in the same space export fine, which matches a document that used to work and stopped as it grew. The workaround recorded on the ticket is converting the page to the modern Fabric editor. That is worth trying first because it costs nothing and version history gives you a way back.

CONFCLOUD-85037 is the other candidate: the export sticks at 0 percent because Confluence renders all hidden content at once. It is specific to pages holding many Expand macros, or large content nested inside them. If your user guide uses Expand blocks to organise sections, check that one too. Its workaround is splitting the page.

For completeness, "Something went wrong" was also the symptom in CONFCLOUD-82116, but that was about space level custom exports on spaces with more than ten thousand pages and was fixed in November 2025, so it is unlikely to be what you are hitting.

If the Fabric conversion does fix it, say so when you raise this with support. It tells them you hit the legacy editor timeout rather than something specific to your site, which is a much faster starting point for them.

davis.smith

@Chris Rainey, @Josh, @Tomislav Tobijas, @Sami Shaik,

Thank you all for your understanding, willingness to help, and great advice.

Confluence is an incredibly powerful tool and, at the same time, an incredibly frustrating time sink. Atlassian needs to open the wallets that we’ve fattened and actually support their product in real time. I realize that the entire high-tech industry has chosen "group-think" and message boards to provide the new "support" function (I use the term loosely). And I've enjoyed interacting and commiserating with my fellow users. But, Atlassian's abdication of their responsibility to help customers solve difficulties with their miraculously powerful, really expensive software borders on malpractice (just like the rest of high-tech). You don't put someone in the middle of the ocean in a gloriously appointed yacht and leave the tool box on the dock.

To save time, frustration, and excess stomach acid, I've made a difficult decision. I'm going to dry-dock the gloriously appointed yacht that requires a small crew to pilot and replace it with a time-tested, reliable dinghy that I can sail on my own. I learned to steer the dinghy fairly well through almost 30 years in technical publications, mostly as a contractor where I couldn't choose my tools. Finally, I can choose my tools. I'm taking my tech pubs to Word. Good night and good luck.

davis.smith

It looks like you probably have found the problem, Oasis. Others have pointed in the same direction — my document (page) is just too big with all those images. Your post, which I missed because I was working on one of my own, confirms to me that I've made the right decision to move on from Confluence; I can't change the size of my document (remove images) without changing the way I've designed and written documentation for almost 30 years. So, Confluence would almost definitely give me this same problem often. I need something less fancy than Confluence, with a wider "gullet."

*** As an aside, I love the descriptive "Something went wrong" error message. Because I've seen the backend for those almost 30 years, I understand that sometimes that's as descriptive as you can be about software errors. Knowing that, though, doesn't make it any less enraging for a user to read in an error message.

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