⚡️ Confluence tables power-up with left alignment and more!

[#1]

Hi Atlassian Community 👋 I’m Rory, a Product Manager from the Atlassian Editor team.

I’m excited to share a number of recent changes we’ve recently started rolling out for Confluence tables.

#1 - Left align your tables

With the rollout of custom table widths in 2023, we introduced the flexibility to set tables to any custom width in both fixed-width and full-width Confluence pages. Since then, we’ve heard from many of you about the need for more table alignment options, especially for use within full-width pages.

With this change you can now use the tables floating toolbar to align your table left or center.

ℹ️ Note: We’ve also updated the default setting for tables inserted in full-width pages to be left-aligned.

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#2 - More intuitive table scaling

We've made table scaling behavior consistent across edit and view modes, and increased the threshold before a table breaks into a horizontal scroll. This should provide a simpler experience, as well as better support for tables viewed in smaller viewports.

↔️ Table scaling logic: tables will scale down proportionally to a point before breaking into a horizontal scroll - providing some flexibility for viewing tables on smaller screens while preventing excessive narrowing of columns where content becomes unreadable.

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#3 - Set your tables to full-width

We've added a full-width option! To set a table to full width, use the table resize handle to snap it to the guide near the edge of the page. Tables set to full width will span the width of the page regardless of viewport size; however, they will follow the scaling logic outlined above.

ℹ️ Note: We’ve also updated the default setting for tables inserted in full-width pages to be full-width.

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#4 - Fixed column widths

To scale or not to scale, that is the question!? Now you can choose when you want to use fixed columns or scalable columns.

👻 Tip: Fix your column widths by selecting 'Fixed column widths’ in the options menu in the table floating toolbar.

When you select fixed column widths, you have absolute control over your column widths and table formatting, ensuring that your content’s structure will always be viewed in its original, intended state.

In contrast, with the default setting, you allow your columns to scale and give your content more flexibility to adjust and fit into a variety of screen sizes.

How to configure 'Fixed column widths'

The result - columns remain fixed instead of scaling down

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#5 - Auto-color new columns

Do you have a table with lots of colored cells? Do you wish that your color from the adjacent column would automatically be applied to any new columns that you add? Well, now they do.

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We hope you are loving Confluence tables more and more!

Please let us know what you think or ask any questions in the comments below - we would ❤️ your feedback.

[Kristian Klima]

Interestingly ...  Somebody asked the left alignment question on the Community just a couple of days ago and I suggested using the layout as a hack - which one can still do should they have other alignment ideas :) 

[Anu Issac]

Why its not happening when I click 'left align' ?

[Barbara Szczesniak]

These are all great features, @Rory Baker. Here's my request for another:

I'd like to be able to apply the fixed width feature at the column level—keep one or more columns at a set width, but let the other(s) scale as needed to fit the space without a horizontal scrollbar. 

[Andy Gladstone]

@Rory Baker a very welcome update. As someone that displays lots of data in tables on my pages (I'm hoping Databases will supplant this action a bit), I am happy to see the ability to both left-align and create fixed width columns. However, I echo @Barbara Szczesniak's request that specifying which columns must remain fixed, vs. which can expand. I understand that controls of that sort may be too granular, but if we don't ask, we can never know! 

[Rory Baker]

Thanks for the feedback @Barbara Szczesniak  and @Andy Gladstone . Fixing individual columns isn't something that we have on our roadmap right now, however is something for us to consider in the future. We really appreciate you sharing what could further improve the experience for you - thank you! As you say - if you don't ask, then you will never know 😉

Hey @Anu Issac - from what I can see in your screenshot it looks as though your page is set to fixed-width and your table size is set to span the full fixed-width space (please let me know if this assumption is incorrect!)

Assuming the above, when you align your table left in a fixed-width page it will align the table with the the corresponding page margin (e.g. align it with the "Action Items" title in your screenshot). Also because the table in your example above appears to stretch the full span of the fixed-width page space, it will look the same whether left aligned or center aligned. If you change your page setting to full-width (see attached screenshot) then you will be able to align your table to the far left page margin. I hope this helps clarify, but please let me know if not.

[Kevin Davies]

Fantastic news, been waiting for this one for a while. Great work team!

[Kreitlein, Martin]

Embarrassing how many votes and comments and critics have been necessary to get such a basic functionality of "left-alignment"! :-(

[Anu Issac]

Thanks @Rory Baker . It was set to full fixed-width space

[Jawann]

@Rory Baker Thanks for the update, all very welcome improvements!

Question: did something happen to size guides referenced in this article as part of these enhancements? The only guide I see now is for full width. This is true for both center-aligned and left-aligned tables.

[Curtis Fox]

Thank you @Rory Baker for the great update! Excited to start using this. I echo some others' requests for having the fixed column width option at both the column and table level. Table level is still useful but adding it per column will make the feature far more powerful. We understand that not everyone views tables on the same size screen; having some columns in a table auto-scale while others are fixed would still be good, so the table doesn't automatically resort to horizontal scrolling on smaller screens/lower resolutions. Typically, only certain data needs to have a fixed column width for improved visibility. Much of the rest of the data in our tables can be more flexible and allow for scaling. 

[Rory Baker]

Hey @Jawann , yes as part of this change we have reduced the number of guides displayed when resizing tables to reduce visual noise and to create consistency in the experience regardless of table alignment.

• In full-width pages you will see only the full-width guides
• In fixed-width pages you will see three sets of guides - standard, wide and full-width

I hope this helps clarify?

[Jawann]

@Rory Baker I appreciate the reply. While that definitely clarifies things, the answer is a bit disappointing. The desire to reduce visual noise makes perfect sense, but we're already accustomed to the guides that are available for left-aligned images. Ideally I would like to have the same guides available for left-aligned tables.

My use case is a full-width page that contains multiple left-aligned tables and I want them all to be the exact same width. This is for client-facing documentation where aesthetics are important and all pages are full-width. These are basic, narrow tables; think two columns, Field Number and Field Name, for example. I can eyeball it pretty well if the tables are close enough together on the page, but it's trickier if they're not visible at the same time. Either way, it's more time consuming and less accurate than using a guide.

My personal opinion is that having the same guides as left-aligned images would be a valuable feature that follows an existing pattern and thus would not introduce too much visual noise or confusion. At a minimum, it would be nice to have the option to explicitly specify the table width in pixels, again similar to the image resizer.

Thanks again for the dialogue!

[Jawann]

@Rory Baker Just want to share some additional feedback on the same topic after creating and editing a few more pages since the rollout. I'm now in a situation where I want tables on different pages to all be the same size. To eyeball it as accurately as possible, I need to open two pages in separate windows, arrange them vertically, and scroll to the correct section of each page. That could take 10x as long vs. being able to directly specify that a table is X guide segments or pixels wide.

Hope that context helps. Cheers!

[Thomas Egger]

@Rory Baker Ad "#4 - Fixed column widths":

Unfortunately this does not work in a Page Properties Macro, which is a pain if you include 3rd party Apps inside the table.

[Rory Baker]

Hey @Jawann  thanks for taking the time to share that additional feedback - it's super helpful! Although we don't have any immediate changes planned here we will definitely consider this as a possible future enhancement.

Hey @Thomas Egger , yes unfortunately this feature is not currently available for tables in nested contexts (e.g. when nested in the page properties macro). Would you please be able to help me understand a bit more about how it might support the use-case you mentioned above?

[Matt Reiner _K15t_]

I'm loving the new flexibility here. Thinking back to what tables were when the new editor released, this is really getting us close to the mega tables we all want (that is, unless we're using databases instead 😉).

Here's a shareable video with the news.