Announcing changes to Microsoft Word import in Confluence

[#1]

Hello,

My name is Shalu Pandey and I’m a product manager for the Confluence Ecosystem team. I want to inform you that on January 7th, 2023 the old Microsoft Word import in Confluence will be deprecated in favor of a new experience.

Old Microsoft Word import

The old import can currently be found by going to a Confluence page and selecting (More Actions) → Advanced details → Import Word Document (see screenshot below):

New Microsoft Word import

The new import experience is currently available—you can access it when creating new Confluence pages. To use the new Word document import, first select Create to start a new Confluence page. From the Confluence page editor, navigate to the templates window on the right-hand side and select Import → Word document (see screenshot below):

This change is part of our commitment to create the best import discoverability and usability experience in Confluence. Let us know if you have any questions or feedback regarding this feature in the comments below.

Check out the Confluence Cloud Support documentation on how to access the new Microsoft Word import. 

Thanks!

Shalu

[Dave Mathijs]

Hi @Shalu Pandey Besides the UI change, are there any improvements on how the import is done and displayed on a page?

[Shalu Pandey]

no other changes at the moment @Dave Mathijs 

[Andy Gladstone]

To follow up on @Dave Mathijs's point, it would help if Confluence could do a better job of matching/mapping the formatting and content from the imported Word Documents. This has long been a thorn in user's sides that the content does not import in a WYSIWYG manner. I assume that most users have access to Word as their main word processing tool and the tools inside the Atlassian ecosystem should be fine-tuned to make that conversion from the Microsoft Coding to a Confluence page. 

[Mirko Schäfer (Seibert Solutions)]

That's a consequent and logical step. Well done!

[Samer Baydoun]

Thank you for thinking of improving the Word Import functionality. It would be great also if you allow the import of a full directory of Word documents at once. This can make the decision to move to Atlassian easier for some projects which still have their documentations on Word.

[Janis Baron]

For the new Word import, I do not see a way to split sections into pages?  It was mentioned above that functionality did not change....how do I do that now?  

[Ellen Khouli]

This won't be helpful since the previous import function was splitting the word file into pages

[Jackie Pearcey]

The ability to import complex documents and be able to set how it could be imported into a ready-made page structure was a very useful function.  Its' loss is a downgrade.  I hope that it will reappear soon.

[Leanne Walker]

This is unfortunate.  We now have no way to split by level/headings, which is something we consistently used.  Any chance of adding that back in?

[Jeffery Kirk]

We need to have the ability, as was present in the earlier import method, to split by level and headings, which are native to Word functionality. This new method doesn't allow us to import a large document formatted using the Header/Subheader and Section functions. 

[Klaus Paul]

In a way, the new import is "better" than before.

The previous UI was always confusing to me, and I often ended the import process with a page in the wrong place that I had to move to the right place in the tree hierarchy.

Now, the process seems more streamlined: I create a page, and the import adds the content of the selected Word file to that page; and the page is published where I expected in the tree hierarchy.

Would I like to have the option to split the imported file into multiple pages? Definitely.

[lynn.dixon]

an improvement but still skews the formatting of said word document once imported

[UB Dehart]

Is this functionality only available when creating a new page?  Or can this be done on an existing page?

[sm]

Thank you for your continued support!  We live and breathe Confluence!

[Nemil Sanghrajka]

Hi @Shalu Pandey 

We would like to continue using Old Microsoft Word Import. 

However, it doesn't seem to be available under "Advanced Details". I am Org-admin for our Confluence-cloud instace so perimission could not be an issue here.

Could you please assisst on what could be missing here?

[Sven Broemer]

It is really a pity! We need this function more often to burn down complex structures on the Confluence site and to be able to structure them thematically better. This means more work and effort for us now.
Especially since one of our use cases was the creation of complex structures for various project types.

[Michelle Rau HP]

Well I am very curious now to see how this is different for Cloud users! If there aren't any changes other than UI changes, that would be disappointing.

Previously, using Confluence server/data center, I wrote up a "survival guide" to keep myself from going crazy using the Word import feature: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-articles/Michelle-s-quot-Five-Stages-of-Word-Import-quot-Survival-Guide/ba-p/1584915   

[Fanny Tastet]

Hi @Shalu Pandey, 

I think everybody here has the same question, but it there still a way to split the document by headings ? It was such a convenient feature... I have to import very large Word documents and now it is going to take ages to split them into pages manually... :(

Thank you,

[Fanny Tastet]

A ticket has been opened about this downgrade: https://jira.atlassian.com/projects/CONFCLOUD/issues/CONFCLOUD-75154?filter=allopenissues 

Make sure to vote for this :) 

[Geert Bellekens]

@Shalu Pandey How is this "not changing functionality" if we can't split on heading levels anymore?

I really need this to work. You could at least respond to the many users that have this same question and not leave us hanging.

[Sebastian Hertle]

And there goes another important function ...

This is extremly disappointing, but not the first time. We started with confluence on premise which was a good product with wide functionality. And now after a year of confluence cloud, so much has been limited or removed, that I am already looking for alternatives.

[Massimo.Ranzini]

In the previous version of importing a Word file I could overwrite the current page, possibly even renaming it.
In the new version instead I have to create a new page losing all the various links to the original page that had been created.
How can I do to have the same functionality?

[Danno]

I was more disappointed to find out that the import from One Drive choice was nothing more than just a different button for Word imports. I was hoping for .pdf at the least.

So, I'm guessing for those users complaining about the loss of the splitting feature you will all have to go out and buy (wait for?) an add-on.

[Chris Callac]

This downgrade has completely broken the workflow that is central to my organization's use of Confluence.  The inability to replace an existing page (and keeping all links, labels, and other metadata intact) will now create hours worth of frustration for my end users.

When I chose to use Confluence for this project, I had some concerns about the current trend of making things more difficult for users.  I was not expecting a feature like the previous Word import to be completely removed.

Choosing Confluence was a mistake (that I will never make again).

[Janet Dixon]

I don't see how this is an improvement.  I like how the import is listing on a tab when you create a page.  I don't like that once a page IS published, you can't import a Word document into that page.  And, why remove the feature to split pages out based on headers?  While the new functionality performs smoother for your average user who has basic knowledge of Confluence, Atlassian has managed again to make changes in the Cloud that are negative to those of us managing these sites.  Your focus should have been on improving the translation of data from Word to Confluence.  That would be a win for everyone!