I have a glossary with 150 terms, with more to come. My current setup is OK, but I'm looking around to see if there's a better way. What do you think of my options? Anything better to suggest? Current situation: one enormous table In my enormous table, each term has a definition plus other information. The Definition cell includes an anchor, which lets me make each link in the See Also column jump straight to the row that defines the related term. Limitations of the huge single table: * The page is enormous, and will only get bigger. * I'd like to be able to show these definitions in other pages, but I don't have the Multi-Excerpt plugin. Other possibilities * Create lots of little pages (one per definition). Display them using Page Properties macro. Use a single Excerpt on each little page to let me drop definitions onto other pages. I've baked my own index page to test this, and it works fine. However, I cannot link to a particular row in the table generated by the PP macro, which breaks my See Also links. * Buy the Glossary plugin. The reviews of this plugin are not particularly favourable. * Keep using my massive table, and buy the Multi Excerpt plugin to allow me to drop definitions into other pages. How scalable is this plugin? Could it cope with 200+ excerpts on a single page? Example of my one enormous four-column table: Term Definition See alsoOrganisation ACI Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) is a data-centre focused technology platform from Cisco that allows the network fabric to be managed as a whole rather than each individual device. More: Cisco: Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) More: Techtarget: How Cisco's Application Centric Infrastructure differs from SDN Related: * DevOps * SDN Cisco ASWithin the Internet, an autonomous system (AS) is a collection of connected Internet Protocol (IP) routing prefixes under the control of one or more network operators on behalf of a single administrative entity or domain that presents a common, clearly defined routing policy to the Internet. More: Wikipedia: Autonomous system (Internet) Related: * BGP * BGPRIB * EBGP GeneralASR Cisco has a range of aggregation services routers (ASRs). These are typically used at the internet edge for enterprise networks and service providers. Related: * ISR * CSR CiscoAzure Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform for building, deploying and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed data centres. Related: * Azure AD Third Party Thanks, Melanie

I realise I'm a little late to this discussion but I wanted to share a work-in-progress that I created after absorbing all the ideas and feedback from this thread—as well as those created by @Patrick O_Connell—with the aim of creating the ultimate glossary for my company's Confluence instance. Acceptance criteria: * Must be able to be maintained by the community * Must be easily-accessible and easy to navigate Desired features: * Ability to search for a glossary entry ✔️ * Ability to create a new entry from a template ✔️ * Ability to view glossary entries categorised alphabetically ✔️ * Ability to view excerpts of each entry on the index ✔️ * Ability to view a glossary entry's full page on-hover from the index ❌ ✔️ Achieved; ❌ Not achieved ---- Here's what you'll need to do: * Create a separate Space for your glossary* This way, you don't get any clashes when naming pages. * Space Settings > Content Tools > Templates: Create a User-Created Template for your glossary entries* Name the template "Glossary entry" or similar * Add sections for: Short description, Full description, Abbreviation(s)* Up to you which sections you include in your glossary entry pages * Add an Excerpt macro to the Short description section * Use the Placeholder Text macro to inform users what to include in each section * Make sure to label the template with a "glossary" label or similar* New pages using this template will inherit this label * From Space Settings > Content Tools > Templates, click "Promote".* This means the template will show at the top when creating a new page on your glossary Space (not entirely necessary, as you'll create a macro which will do this part automatically for the user) * Add a Livesearch macro to the Overview page* Restrict to label(s) = "glossary" (or whatever your parent label is, set during "Create a User-Created Template") * Content type to include in search = "page" * Additional information = "page excerpt" * Add a Create from Template macro to the Overview page* Button text = "Create new entry" * Template name = The name of the template you set during "Create a User-Created Template" * Title of page to be created = " " * List out the alphabet ("Aa", "Bb", "Cc", etc.) as separate headings on your Overview page* Consider using a two-column format so the page doesn't get too long * Starting with the "Aa" heading, add a Content by Label macro* Untick all boxes and remove values from every field except for:* Sort by = "title" * Excerpt Display = "simple" * Populate the Label field with a label corresponding to alphabetical sorting:* E.g. "glossary_sort-a" * Copy your Content by Label macro and paste it under every letter heading, creating a new label for each letter as you go in the Label field* Each Content by Label macro should only have one label assigned to it based on the letter heading it represents * Time to test it out!* Activate your Create from Template macro which should take you straight to a new page editor.* Write something in the Excerpt box * Publish page * Check that this new page has the "glossary" label assigned to it * Assign the alphabetical label (e.g. "glossary_sort-a") to the page manually * Go back to your Overview page and:* Check that the entry is under the correct letter heading * Check that the Excerpt is displaying correctly * Done! Make sure it looks presentable and starting populating your new glossary with all of that confusing vocabulary! I'd be grateful for any feedback on this method of creating a glossary. Assuming I've understood everyone correctly, this seems to be the most ideal version of a glossary that you can easily make in Confluence. If anyone knows how to create on-hover functionality on the index page OR a way that I can make abbreviations, for example, visible on the index without including them in the glossary entry's page title, please let me know! Of course, feel free to bat any questions my way and I'll do my best to answer!

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How to make a glossary in Confluence

Melanie Albrecht

I have a glossary with 150 terms, with more to come. My current setup is OK, but I'm looking around to see if there's a better way. What do you think of my options? Anything better to suggest?

Current situation: one enormous table

In my enormous table, each term has a definition plus other information. The Definition cell includes an anchor, which lets me make each link in the See Also column jump straight to the row that defines the related term.

Limitations of the huge single table:

The page is enormous, and will only get bigger.
I'd like to be able to show these definitions in other pages, but I don't have the Multi-Excerpt plugin.

Other possibilities

Create lots of little pages (one per definition). Display them using Page Properties macro. Use a single Excerpt on each little page to let me drop definitions onto other pages.

I've baked my own index page to test this, and it works fine. However, I cannot link to a particular row in the table generated by the PP macro, which breaks my See Also links.
Buy the Glossary plugin. The reviews of this plugin are not particularly favourable.
Keep using my massive table, and buy the Multi Excerpt plugin to allow me to drop definitions into other pages.
How scalable is this plugin?
Could it cope with 200+ excerpts on a single page?

Example of my one enormous four-column table:

Term	Definition	See also	Organisation
ACI	Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) is a data-centre focused technology platform from Cisco that allows the network fabric to be managed as a whole rather than each individual device. More: Cisco: Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) More: Techtarget: How Cisco's Application Centric Infrastructure differs from SDN	Related: DevOps SDN	Cisco
AS	Within the Internet, an autonomous system (AS) is a collection of connected Internet Protocol (IP) routing prefixes under the control of one or more network operators on behalf of a single administrative entity or domain that presents a common, clearly defined routing policy to the Internet. More: Wikipedia: Autonomous system (Internet)	Related: BGP BGPRIB EBGP	General
ASR	Cisco has a range of aggregation services routers (ASRs). These are typically used at the internet edge for enterprise networks and service providers.	Related: ISR CSR	Cisco
Azure	Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform for building, deploying and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed data centres.	Related: Azure AD	Third Party

Thanks,

Melanie

Accepted answers

TomC

Hi Melanie,

We have a glossary of over 6000 terms and growing, each on a separate page (one per definition). It is open to our company of almost 8000 employees. As a side note, it also comes built-in with a prominent search field on the landing page and the as-you-type hits are just from that space. And an option we like (not required): a built-in Index (entries are sorted and can be paged through A, B, C, pages which display hyperlinked, alphabetized titles of entries which some find useful to be able to scan what's in there - i.e. they may not think of searching but like to discover by browsing).

It was done under contract with a noted Atlassian Expert and I understand will soon be on the Marketplace. If curious to hear more (please understand, I'm an Atlassian customer and don't work for the third-party company either; willing to discuss/screenshare what our solution looks like), feel free to contact me at tomcrespi@gmail.com

We have had many employees contribute to our glossary by the way - it's by far our most contributed-to Confluence space out of the few hundred we have.

Tom

James Wilkins_7d4a5d

I realise I'm a little late to this discussion but I wanted to share a work-in-progress that I created after absorbing all the ideas and feedback from this thread—as well as those created by @Patrick O_Connell—with the aim of creating the ultimate glossary for my company's Confluence instance.

Acceptance criteria:

Must be able to be maintained by the community
Must be easily-accessible and easy to navigate

Desired features:

Ability to search for a glossary entry ✔️
Ability to create a new entry from a template ✔️
Ability to view glossary entries categorised alphabetically ✔️
Ability to view excerpts of each entry on the index ✔️
Ability to view a glossary entry's full page on-hover from the index ❌

✔️ Achieved; ❌ Not achieved

----

Here's what you'll need to do:

Create a separate Space for your glossary
1. This way, you don't get any clashes when naming pages.
Space Settings > Content Tools > Templates: Create a User-Created Template for your glossary entries
1. Name the template "Glossary entry" or similar
2. Add sections for: Short description, Full description, Abbreviation(s)
  1. Up to you which sections you include in your glossary entry pages
3. Add an Excerpt macro to the Short description section
4. Use the Placeholder Text macro to inform users what to include in each section
5. Make sure to label the template with a "glossary" label or similar
  1. New pages using this template will inherit this label
6. From Space Settings > Content Tools > Templates, click "Promote".
  1. This means the template will show at the top when creating a new page on your glossary Space (not entirely necessary, as you'll create a macro which will do this part automatically for the user)
Add a Livesearch macro to the Overview page
1. Restrict to label(s) = "glossary" (or whatever your parent label is, set during "Create a User-Created Template")
2. Content type to include in search = "page"
3. Additional information = "page excerpt"
Add a Create from Template macro to the Overview page
1. Button text = "Create new entry"
2. Template name = The name of the template you set during "Create a User-Created Template"
3. Title of page to be created = "<Insert full, unabbreviated name of glossary term here>"
List out the alphabet ("Aa", "Bb", "Cc", etc.) as separate headings on your Overview page
1. Consider using a two-column format so the page doesn't get too long
Starting with the "Aa" heading, add a Content by Label macro
1. Untick all boxes and remove values from every field except for:
  1. Sort by = "title"
  2. Excerpt Display = "simple"
2. Populate the Label field with a label corresponding to alphabetical sorting:
  1. E.g. "glossary_sort-a"
Copy your Content by Label macro and paste it under every letter heading, creating a new label for each letter as you go in the Label field
1. Each Content by Label macro should only have one label assigned to it based on the letter heading it represents
Time to test it out!
1. Activate your Create from Template macro which should take you straight to a new page editor.
  1. Write something in the Excerpt box
  2. Publish page
  3. Check that this new page has the "glossary" label assigned to it
  4. Assign the alphabetical label (e.g. "glossary_sort-a") to the page manually
2. Go back to your Overview page and:
  1. Check that the entry is under the correct letter heading
  2. Check that the Excerpt is displaying correctly
Done! Make sure it looks presentable and starting populating your new glossary with all of that confusing vocabulary!

I'd be grateful for any feedback on this method of creating a glossary. Assuming I've understood everyone correctly, this seems to be the most ideal version of a glossary that you can easily make in Confluence.

If anyone knows how to create on-hover functionality on the index page OR a way that I can make abbreviations, for example, visible on the index without including them in the glossary entry's page title, please let me know!

Of course, feel free to bat any questions my way and I'll do my best to answer!

All comments

TomC

Hi Melanie,

We have had many employees contribute to our glossary by the way - it's by far our most contributed-to Confluence space out of the few hundred we have.

Tom

Melanie Albrecht

Thanks very much, Tom. I will indeed contact you to find out more.

Felix Kipper

I also would like to see more, so I will contact you.

Jen

Tom,

Your workaround to create a Company Glossary makes the most sense to us too. Was there a particular type of Space you used that worked best?

Thanks,

Jen

Patrick O_Connell

Hey folks,

@Alex O'Donnell was asking, now way up there, people's thoughts re: perils and merits of the method they described.

I want to reformat a glossary that's currently one very long page, was intrigued by the method, and did a little trial in my personal space.

Good:

Very easy to integrate new terms / new pages: You just have to put the right label(s), and the Content by Label macro automagically picks up what's new.
You don't have everything on one crazy-long page.

Not so great:

What's described for Good, above, is better if it's one person owning and managing the glossary.
I find it frustrating to not have more control over format of the page-summary entries. In my one-very-long-page version, at least I was able to designate each term title as a Heading 3.
A page for every single term = a lot of individual pages.

All the best,
Pat O'Connell
Technical Writer
MindGeek Montreal

Patrick O_Connell

Good day.

I'm still working on my updated glossary, and I had Eureka! moment I describe in a discussion I started, here:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-discussions/Importing-a-Word-doc-to-create-multiple-pages-A-light-bulb/m-p/1200460#M6076

I have also figured out a really cool way to have letter headings in the term index, building on @Alex O'Donnell 's method, up there. More on that, later!

All my best,
Pat O'Connell
Technical Writer
MindGeek Montreal

Patrick O_Connell

Hello,

I meant to cross-link this the other day, when I created this new discussion, but here's something that builds on ideas from 3 or 4 people in the above, including myself:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-discussions/A-Confluence-glossary-where-you-can-put-letter-headings/td-p/1203774

I think this is close to the limit of how fancy-schmancy you can get with a glossary in Confuence, sans macros, but hey, feel free to argue otherwise!

And no, you can't have my letter-heading graphics!

Pat O'Connell
Technical Writer
MindGeek / Montreal

James Wilkins_7d4a5d

Acceptance criteria:

Must be able to be maintained by the community
Must be easily-accessible and easy to navigate

Desired features:

Ability to search for a glossary entry ✔️
Ability to create a new entry from a template ✔️
Ability to view glossary entries categorised alphabetically ✔️
Ability to view excerpts of each entry on the index ✔️
Ability to view a glossary entry's full page on-hover from the index ❌

✔️ Achieved; ❌ Not achieved

----

Here's what you'll need to do:

Create a separate Space for your glossary
1. This way, you don't get any clashes when naming pages.
Space Settings > Content Tools > Templates: Create a User-Created Template for your glossary entries
1. Name the template "Glossary entry" or similar
2. Add sections for: Short description, Full description, Abbreviation(s)
  1. Up to you which sections you include in your glossary entry pages
3. Add an Excerpt macro to the Short description section
4. Use the Placeholder Text macro to inform users what to include in each section
5. Make sure to label the template with a "glossary" label or similar
  1. New pages using this template will inherit this label
6. From Space Settings > Content Tools > Templates, click "Promote".
  1. This means the template will show at the top when creating a new page on your glossary Space (not entirely necessary, as you'll create a macro which will do this part automatically for the user)
Add a Livesearch macro to the Overview page
1. Restrict to label(s) = "glossary" (or whatever your parent label is, set during "Create a User-Created Template")
2. Content type to include in search = "page"
3. Additional information = "page excerpt"
Add a Create from Template macro to the Overview page
1. Button text = "Create new entry"
2. Template name = The name of the template you set during "Create a User-Created Template"
3. Title of page to be created = "<Insert full, unabbreviated name of glossary term here>"
List out the alphabet ("Aa", "Bb", "Cc", etc.) as separate headings on your Overview page
1. Consider using a two-column format so the page doesn't get too long
Starting with the "Aa" heading, add a Content by Label macro
1. Untick all boxes and remove values from every field except for:
  1. Sort by = "title"
  2. Excerpt Display = "simple"
2. Populate the Label field with a label corresponding to alphabetical sorting:
  1. E.g. "glossary_sort-a"
Copy your Content by Label macro and paste it under every letter heading, creating a new label for each letter as you go in the Label field
1. Each Content by Label macro should only have one label assigned to it based on the letter heading it represents
Time to test it out!
1. Activate your Create from Template macro which should take you straight to a new page editor.
  1. Write something in the Excerpt box
  2. Publish page
  3. Check that this new page has the "glossary" label assigned to it
  4. Assign the alphabetical label (e.g. "glossary_sort-a") to the page manually
2. Go back to your Overview page and:
  1. Check that the entry is under the correct letter heading
  2. Check that the Excerpt is displaying correctly
Done! Make sure it looks presentable and starting populating your new glossary with all of that confusing vocabulary!

Of course, feel free to bat any questions my way and I'll do my best to answer!

James Wilkins_7d4a5d

Acceptance criteria:

Must be able to be maintained by the community
Must be easily-accessible and easy to navigate

Desired features:

Ability to search for a glossary entry ✔️
Ability to create a new entry from a template ✔️
Ability to view glossary entries categorised alphabetically ✔️
Ability to view excerpts of each entry on the index ✔️
Ability to view a glossary entry's full page on-hover from the index ❌

✔️ Achieved; ❌ Not achieved

----

Here's what you'll need to do:

Create a separate 'Space' for your glossary
1. This way, you don't get any clashes when naming pages.
Space Settings > Content Tools > Templates: Create a 'User-Created Template' for your glossary entries
1. Name the template "Glossary entry" or similar
2. Add sections for: Short description, Full description, Abbreviation(s)
  1. Up to you which sections you include in your glossary entry pages
3. Add an 'Excerpt' macro to the Short description section
4. Use the 'Placeholder Text' macro to inform users what to include in each section
5. Make sure to label the template with a "glossary" label or similar
  1. New pages using this template will inherit this label
6. From Space Settings > Content Tools > Templates, click "Promote".
  1. This means the template will show at the top when creating a new page on your glossary Space (not entirely necessary, as you'll create a macro which will do this part automatically for the user)
Add a 'Livesearch' macro to the Overview page
1. Restrict to label(s) = "glossary" (or whatever your parent label is, set during "Create a User-Created Template")
2. Content type to include in search = "page"
3. Additional information = "page excerpt"
Add a 'Create from Template' macro to the Overview page
1. Button text = "Create new entry"
2. Template name = The name of the template you set during "Create a User-Created Template"
3. Title of page to be created = "<Insert full, unabbreviated name of glossary term here>"
List out the alphabet ("Aa", "Bb", "Cc", etc.) as separate headings on your Overview page
1. Consider using a two-column format so the page doesn't get too long
Starting with the "Aa" heading, add a 'Content by Label' macro
1. Untick all boxes and remove values from every field except for:
  1. Sort by = "title"
  2. Excerpt Display = "simple"
2. Populate the Label field with a label corresponding to alphabetical sorting:
  1. E.g. "glossary_sort-a"
Copy your 'Content by Label' macro and paste it under every letter heading, creating a new label for each letter as you go in the Label field
1. Each 'Content by Label' macro should only have one label assigned to it based on the letter heading it represents
Time to test it out!
1. Activate your 'Create from Template' macro which should take you straight to a new page editor.
  1. Write something in the Excerpt box
  2. Publish page
  3. Check that this new page has the "glossary" label assigned to it
  4. Assign the alphabetical label (e.g. "glossary_sort-a") to the page manually
2. Go back to your Overview page and:
  1. Check that the entry is under the correct letter heading
  2. Check that the Excerpt is displaying correctly
Done! Make sure it looks presentable and starting populating your new glossary with all of that confusing vocabulary!

Of course, feel free to bat any questions my way and I'll do my best to answer!

Patrick O_Connell

This is great if you your employer will actually consent to having a separate space for a glossary, and if you're a space admin for it. For example, the latter is something possible for me, having asked and had it happen. The former is not, having asked and had it not happen. :-)

Under those conditions, this is very well-documented, and doubtless useful to many.

Pat O'Connell
Technical Writer
MindGeek Montreal

Josef_Popelka

Hi James

can you please share some print screens what should be final outlook?

Thanks in advance Josef

Daniel Orgonik

I would also appreciate the screenshots related to particular steps. Thank you

unknown

Thanks this was really useful.

Have created a glossary based on your guidance. I'm thinking of adding a few more things to it:

1) Tagging. I was wondering how do you go about TAGGING glossary terms? There may be a group of terms that related to topic A, or topic B- has anyone implemented a labelling system?

2) Showing abbreviations in the main glossary page. How do you recommend brining that into the main page?

Thanks in advance.

Patrick O_Connell

Hello @[deleted]

1) I'm not quite sure what you mean by tagging. The only tagging-like mechanism native to Confluence (i.e., without plug-ins) is labels, so if I'm understanding you correctly, that's what you would use.

2) What do you mean by abbreviations? The method I lay out in:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-discussions/A-Confluence-glossary-where-you-can-put-letter-headings/td-p/1203774

...includes having a shortened version of the full definition show up in the glossary root page. I'm not sure if that's what you mean, though.

Best,
Pat O'Connell
Technical Writer in Residence (my own, that is!)
MindGeek Montreal

unknown

Hello @Patrick O_Connell

1) I'm looking for a way to classify the glossary terms, whilst appearing in the alphabetical list. In confluence, the "Status" symbol is best - ie colour + text. For example the glassary term may be related to "sales", or "support".

2) Abbreviation- I've followed your method and am using the extract macro which is great! However for example a glossary term "Subscriber", might also be known as "Subs" as an abbreviation. Ideally I'd have 3-4 sections in the glossary list (Glossary term, extract of explanation, abbreviations if available, classification code ie #1). I guess a simple way to solve this would be to include it in the glossary term title itself "Subscriber, Subs, Other abbreviations..."

Thanks!

unknown

@[deleted]: Hey, Rosalind, I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but I noticed that there are custom status blocks you can insert on pages now. I wonder if they can be used in the way you mention?

Andy Folland

Hello folks,

First of all - a huge thumbs up to James Wilkins for that massive contribution - that is supremely generous of you.

Secondly, a few folks here have enquired about some kind of mouseover type feature. Much as I hate being sent over to the marketplace to look for stuff, FYI the VECTORS Glossary app has a highlight function that might do something pretty close to what you are looking for:
https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1211800/glossary-for-confluence?hosting=cloud&tab=overview

However, please also note that I am here currently looking for an alternative solution because this app has failed to work in one of our spaces and we are currently waiting on an update on a logged ticket with them.

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