Change font Size / Type

[Kevin Black]

I have spent more time than I wanted to to try and determine how to change the font Style and Size in Confluence. I see there are basic styling options including things like Normal Text, Heading 1 etc. BUT I cannot find anywhere where you can change the fnt size and type.

I have perused articles going back to 2013 that show images and options that NO LONGER EXIST, require purchase of third party software where the responder admits works maybe 80% of the time etc. The Atlassian documentation, for something that should be so simple, is confusing and pretty much useless.

We have made a decision to base all of our documentation in Confluence, but it you cannot even do simple things like change the Style and size of a font, this decision may require some revisiting. That's not a veiled threat, Atlassian don't give a toss about the meagre amount of funds we inject into their company, it's just a fact. If the product is not fit for purpose, we should look at another product.

So in 2020, using Confluence Cloud my question is:

HOW DO I CHANGE THE TYPE AND SIZE OF FONTS?

Any help would be appreciated.

Kevin

[Shannon S · Accepted solution]

Hi all,

Thank you so much for providing your feedback on this issue, and apologies for the late response.  I agree that adjusting the font size can help to create a visually appealing page in Confluence.

We have an open feature request for this functionality in the new editor below.

• CONFCLOUD-46077 Ability to adjust the font size

Clicking Vote for this issue will help the team know how important this feature is to have in Confluence. Please watch the ticket for future updates on the implementation of that feature.

Thank you again, and take care!

Shannon

[Jonathan Reich]

@Shannon S https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-46077 feature is yet to be  implemented and it has been several years since it was raises. Could this please be escalated as that issue is fully of hundreds of commenters complaining about it?
Kind regards

[Teresa Weatherall]

What is the hold up here? This is annoying people on a daily basis, as can be seen from the comments on https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-46077 and https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFSERVER-46077 

Sucks that this question is showing as "Solved", it's not, it's just been kicked down the road.

[Warick Harvey]

The inability to change the font makes an 8 row table with several rows of text in each cell larger than the screen. 

It is simply not good enough.

Escalated as that issue 

[Michael Taylor]

with css stylesheet macro or html macro you can use css to change the table header or table content.

th, td { font-size: 10px; }

th is the Table Header and td is Table Data.

[Wayne Cannon]

As a long-time software engineer, I understand the authors' intent to preserve a common look-and-feel.  However, in my book, Confluence is to allow end users to present their data in a way that fits THEIR audience in THEIR context, not to make Atlassian authors happy that the resulting look fits THEIR desires and limited set of contexts.

Take a lesson from two major aerospace manufacturers who decided that the decision of their software engineers was more important than the judgement of the pilots'.  While that may be true for some circumstances, it was fatal for a lot of people in several other cases.

The end user should be able to format the data in the way they judge to be the best for their circumstance and audience.  If it looks trashy to Atlassian authors, that's on the end user.  I would like my users to be able to see a 40-line overview table on one screen, as it serves primarily as an index into more detailed pages (with larger fonts).

[Sharon Helms · Accepted solution]

Hi Kevin, 

In the base product (Confluence Cloud) it's not possible to change the type and size of fonts. 

It might be possible to do this with a paid add-on, and perhaps someone else will chime in with some suggestions from the Marketplace.

I feel your frustration with the documentation-- it's become more confusing lately with the arrival of the new Confluence editor. There is quite a bit of older documentation that only refers to the old "legacy" editor. 

Best wishes, Sharon

[Lars Öhlin]

The new look and feel that came with the new editor is frustrating. The font size is too big and all the former nice features with panels being able to create compact graphical designs are gone. Now there is just a lot of air in the pages and i cant do anything about it! And the huge font size is not optimized for high res screens where im able to present a lot of content on a single screen without the need to scroll. Really disappointing!

[ltesler]

It seems to depend on the space owner's decision, as well. In our case, the font size is too small. We don't have your "lots of air" problem; we have the opposite problem.

[Kevin Mawhinney]

I believe the idea for the extra "white spaces," or "air," is to make it more legible and less like a wall of text. In the world of advertising and the newer, SOE trend, you want people to be able to pick up on key points within your presentation faster. 

"Presenting a lot of content on a single screen" isn't always good. How many times have you read information and skipped over a good portion just to get to the stuff you are looking for?

The more white spaces, the easier it is for people's eyes to gravitate toward what you want them to see. 

[Joe Kearns]

Perhaps the OP, like myself, is not in the world of advertising.  Personally, I'm in the world of high-density technical information.  The point of a large screen, in my world, isn't to be able to make bullet points really big, it's to be able to see lots of stuff at the same time.  ymmv

[Stefan Althöfer]

Best to do only empty pages in Confluence, and do the serious stuff elsewhere

[Cathy Bauer]

I had more control over font size and white space when I was editor of my high school newspaper in 1977. Not being able to make these kind of changes in a 2024 product is simply asinine. Y'all at Atlassian should be embarrassed.

[Lynda Taylor]

It's 2022 and this still sucks. I can't change the size of tables and the giant font size looks ridiculous.

[Atlassian user]

---

I used tamperMonkey plugin to increase font size and style of my own choice.

There are font changer plugin in chrome extensions which you can use it

[Tetiana]

Is this still not resolved? Couldn't find any other info :( 

The font size adjuster would be very helpful for small prints or for tables .. Please, consider adding this option

[Joe Bloggs]

Honestly, what a nightmare this has been. 

[Kevin Black]

The same removing the links at the left and top of the page that go to your spaces which, for outward facing documentation, you just might not want to happen. The Atlassian solution is to buy a third party product like scroll viewport. 

This is just idiotic. How can you standardise your documentation on a product that is unfit fir public consumption? I just don’t get the mindset of the Atlassian developers.  Or is it just a marketing ploy to force you to buy other products / add ons?

[Andrew Darrant]

I have been reviewing Confluence for use for all our documentation etc and investingating useful features with cross linking and labelling etc. I hadn't even considered that changign the font size within parts of my page or adding my own styles (eg "TableText") would be an issue. To be honest given this seems to be impossible in my view it renders the product unusable and I feel I have wasted my time - not prepared to be spending every working day of my life looking at massive fonts and poorly laid out pages because I can't do basic stuff. Amazing

[Joe Bloggs]

Welcome to the mildly upset Atlassian users thread. That's where relationship with your core users starts to break down. Maybe it's worth the profits, who knows. 

[David VerPlanck]

If they want to force you to use their font and sizes, then they need to at least make it work.  I tried several things to correct the font size for that bottom bullet and none worked.  I will figure out a way to fix this but it is BS that I can accidentally get a very large font and not be able to just reapply the paragraph style to fix it.  They give you a limited, mediocre barebone editor and don't make the effort to at least make it bullet proof. 

[Kristen Madeley]

I thought that Ctrl+Shift+Left angle bracket (<) worked for me and reduced the size of my 'Normal text' in a table....but it turns out that it was reading that as Ctrl+Shift+comma(,) which just switches it to subscript.

[Marco Raven]

If your administrator didn't switch off the option you can use the HTML Macro:

I just wanted some text in a table to be smaller, so I added (with the HTML Macro) the following tag before the text:

<small>

And (with the HTML Macro) the following tag after the text:

</small>

Of course all kinds of other HTML tags would be possible.

[Geri B]

This works for whole paragraphs but not inside flowing text since (with v7.13.7, at least, but most probably with any other, too) the HTML macro is transformed to:

...
</p>
... content of HTML macro ...
<p>
...

which, by default and due to the <p> elements, is rendered with newlines and increased vertical spacing before and after the HTML macro's content by any browser I know.

See MDN > References > HTML Elements ><p>: The Paragraph element:

Paragraphs are usually represented in visual media as blocks of text separated from adjacent blocks by blank lines and/or first-line indentation, [...]