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link to anchor doesn't work

Derek Dokoto July 20, 2017

I added an anchor  #thisanchor near the bottom of the page (with at least a page  worth of text following it.)

I added the link near the top of the page.   The unqualified link did NOT link to the same page.  It added a bogus prefix URL when saved.  So I added a fully qualified link for that same page where the link was inserted so it would link within the page.

when I hover over the link it says the right thing - "Go to link #thisanchor on this page".

But it doesn't do anything.  The page does not move to the bottom anchor.

There is no TOC defined on this page.

The anchor only shows up in 'edit' mode as per design.

This is such a basic use of anchors and it doesn't work.   Help!

Confluence 5.10.8

34 answers

4 votes
Hauke Hörhold
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November 8, 2019

I can't believe this problem still exist!

PLS FIX! :-S

3 votes
Elliott Collins July 9, 2018

Just wanted to flag that anchors still don't work. It'd be *really* great if they did.

2 votes
Donna Breckenridge April 27, 2021

I am on here looking for help with the anchors as well.  Every time I edit the pages to add new content, I must go and repair all of my anchors to remove the extra text that pops in the anchor and causes an error on the page.  Can you assign someone to work with us to fix?  I am not on old version and I know better than try to use a plug in.

2 votes
Ralf Gartmann February 18, 2020

Made my day...

2 votes
Deleted user November 20, 2019

Seriously? This was reported over 2 years ago, and it's not even a complex subject. Imagine how long it must take them to address real issues.

2 votes
Joshua Landman January 28, 2019

Apparently in Confluence the real anchor name =  #page name-anchor name.

So link to http://yada.yada.yada/page name#page name-anchor name

That's how I got it working. 

Not sure if that is intentional on Atlassians part - it's wonky but functional

Also I attached it to a block element -- like a table header... 

2 votes
Derek Dokoto January 19, 2018

I am no longer working at the company that used Confluence.   The tool had a smattering of "experts" around my company.   I consulted with all of them at the time and it was a limitation/defect of Confluence and was never resolved before leaving the company.    In principle, Confluence is a great tool.  Unfortunately with the number of significant glitches and oversights and missing functionality, adoption rate was limited and most pages are simple text files preventing a great deal of promise suggested by the tool.  

Sorry I can't be helpful.   The tool is broken.

1 vote
Michael Reekie _g_ July 17, 2023

I just want to thank @Steffen Heller  and his post above on July 27, 2018 for helping me understand this.  I came here frustrated like others but found the answer in his replies.

 

I created an anchor called #bottom which I added to the bottom of my wiki page.

I attempted to test it using this URL

https://wiki.RRR.edu/confluence/display/HMDC/IQSS+Engineering+Reporting#bottom.

That did not help. I got frustrated. I read the post. I then tried.

https://wiki.RRR.edu/confluence/display/HMDC/IQSS+Engineering+Reporting#IQSSEngineeringReporting-bottom

 

This worked. Now I understand.

Thanks

1 vote
eMail WorkBench March 7, 2023

Almost a decade later [feels like two decades]] and "Anchor" links are still not working.
If it is working where do I prep for this [nuclear science level] how to use knowledge?

1 vote
David_Harris August 2, 2019

Here's a solution that works:

  1. Embed an HTML macro where you want your anchor
  2. Add the following inside the HTML box: <a id="my-anchor"></a>
  3. Save the page
  4. Now link to your page using any of the usual methods (title-based url, shared-url, page-id url) and add #my-anchor to the end
  5. Rename my-anchor in both places to match whatever you need it to be
1 vote
Doug Swartz
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July 27, 2018

@Tatyana I don't have any idea why Atlassian decided to make anchors work the way they do. I agree that forcing a page reload to go to a link on the same page is poor behavior. Sometimes, building a page from SQL requests or other external resources is expensive and slow.

I've decided to simply use the HTML macro when I want normal link behavior.

1 vote
Tatyana Kuznetsova July 26, 2018

@Steffen Heller

Exactly - it automatically inserts #mypage in front of "section1".  If I link to "section 1" it does not work.

1 vote
Steffen Heller
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July 26, 2018

So, if you create a link to "#mypage-section1" it does work? But a link to "'section1" does not work? Is that what you tried?

1 vote
Derek Dokoto July 24, 2017

This isn't my first rodeo. That's the first thing I did was read the documentation. It's a bug. My company admin can request support from Atlassian support.  The issue is still open.

0 votes
steve_dunn February 8, 2022

I'm flabbergasted that Atlassian think it's acceptable that users have to follow these instruction **just to get a link to an anchor on a wiki page**!  Incredible! I have a glossary page where I'd like a link to every gloassary item, but there's no way in the world that I'm crafting 100+ URLs like this.  Appaling.

--------------

Link to an anchor from another web page or another Confluence site:

Use a full URL in the following format:

Link syntax

Examples
http://myconfluence.com/display/spacekey/pagename#pagename-anchorname

http://myconfluence.com/display/DOCS/My+page#Mypage-bottom

http://myconfluence.com/display/DOCS/My+page#Mypage-importantinformation

Notes about the full URL:

The page name is repeated in the URL, after the # sign. The second occurrence of the page name is concatenated into a single word, with all spaces removed.
There is a single dash (hyphen) between the concatenated page name and the anchor name.
The anchor name in the full URL is concatenated into a single word, with all spaces removed.
The anchor name is case sensitive.
If the page name contains special characters, where the URL displays a page ID rather than a name, the link to an anchor will look more like this http://myconfluence.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=54689987#Test-page1!-anchor 
In this example the page title is Test - Page 1! and the anchor name is anchor.

0 votes
steve_dunn February 8, 2022

Doesn't work any more as the HTML macro isn't available (at least not in my installation at work (could be configuration, could be a bug, could be that they couldn't be arsed to maintain it - who knows!))

0 votes
steve_dunn February 8, 2022

<tumbleweed>

Incredible that they actually charge money for this product!

0 votes
steve_dunn February 8, 2022

I'm flabbergasted that Atlassian think it's acceptable that users have to follow the instructions below **just to get a link to an anchor on a wiki page**!  Incredible! I have a glossary page where I'd like a link to every gloassary item, but there's no way in the world that I'm manually crafting 100+ URLs like this.  Appaling.

--------------

Link to an anchor from another web page or another Confluence site:

Use a full URL in the following format:

Link syntax

Examples
http://myconfluence.com/display/spacekey/pagename#pagename-anchorname

http://myconfluence.com/display/DOCS/My+page#Mypage-bottom

http://myconfluence.com/display/DOCS/My+page#Mypage-importantinformation

Notes about the full URL:

The page name is repeated in the URL, after the # sign. The second occurrence of the page name is concatenated into a single word, with all spaces removed.
There is a single dash (hyphen) between the concatenated page name and the anchor name.
The anchor name in the full URL is concatenated into a single word, with all spaces removed.
The anchor name is case sensitive.
If the page name contains special characters, where the URL displays a page ID rather than a name, the link to an anchor will look more like this http://myconfluence.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=54689987#Test-page1!-anchor 
In this example the page title is Test - Page 1! and the anchor name is anchor.

0 votes
laralg
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July 21, 2020

If none of the solutions work for you, and your confluence is a bit old your problem might be that you had this old plugin installed Confluence Iphone plugin.

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFSERVER-20319

0 votes
Hauke Hörhold
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January 17, 2020

As described here, the macro really is gone now: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-questions/Anchor-Macro-Not-in-Confluence-Cloud/qaq-p/1019247

Really? I mean... REALLY?! Money back plz

0 votes
Deleted user January 16, 2020

So they fixed this by getting rid of anchors all together. Absolutely brilliant.

0 votes
kosterskiy December 10, 2019

Scenario

  1. Insert link (ctrl+k)
  2. Advanced
  3. Add name of document (not URL) and anchor in "Link", e.g. "Terms and conditions#about"
  4. Done
0 votes
Ravikumar B July 11, 2019

Apparently, Confluence Cloud offers wiki markup to add hyperlinks. The syntax is [page name#anchor name]. For example, [About Us#contact].

0 votes
mattcobb September 11, 2018

It's a bug: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-62589

Please vote for it

0 votes
Tatyana Kuznetsova July 27, 2018

@Doug SwartzThank you - unfortunetely, my version of WIKI does not offer "HTML macro"

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