Easy way to insert standard text?

[Phyllis Davies]

I feel like I'm missing something obvious but is there a way to insert a standard text quickly while editing a page?

For example: During a meeting we'll often mention a project and need to add some specific details about it (lets say client name, start date for simplicity). I'd like to press a few keys to add

Client: 

Start date: 

to the page, ready to have the details filled in. Surely that's possible?

In practice the prompt list we want to add is several items long and varies with context so I'd like to set up 3 of these shortcuts/macros/autocompletes or whatever is the best way to do it. I've looked at all those routes and none seem to allow quite what I want.

What am I missing!?

Thanks in advance to anyone who answers.

[Mykenna Cepek · Accepted solution]

Confluence does not currently have any "text snippets" features.

Templates in Confluence (as suggested by @SJ) are good for predesigned entire pages - not what you want.

There may be a Confluence App in the Atlassian Marketplace that would have this feature. Worth a look. Many have free trials, so you can experiment with them.

I suspect you could find some browser add-ons that will do this for you. I can't recommend any, as I haven't used them. But I see that at least one exists. You probably want to share these snippets with anyone editing the page. A browser add-on likely won't do that.

You can also vote for CONFCLOUD-57838 which is an existing enhancement request for a feature like this in Confluence (requested over 4 years ago, with only a few votes).

Be aware that the term "snippet" in Confluence tends to refer to "code snippets" and the related code formatting macros (a different thing than you want).

[Phyllis Davies]

Thanks for the confirmation, at least I know its not something obvious I am missing! The plug ins approach might actually work for us so I will look into that. 

[Todd Lewis]

Alas, CONFCLOUD-57838 has been "closed / wont fix" in the mistaken assumption that this was a Legacy Editor issue rather than a "Confluence has no way to simply insert text" issue.

[Sam Lucas]

Hi @Phyllis Davies @SJ ! I am a new PM on Confluence Templates! This post caught my attention! it sounds to me like you ay be trying to create templates for content that can go into a page... not necessarily an entire page template itself. If you are interested and available, I'd enjoy scheduling a brief zoom call to learn more about your use case and specific needs here. Thanks! 

[SJ]

For me it the functionality is similar to the canned responses that some email clients have or another example would be found in the Jira issue comments section

[SJ]

This really sounds like a page template.  

You can create custom templates with the text you want prepopulated.

[Todd Lewis]

Templates are for entire pages.

What we're looking for is a way to insert boilerplate text as many times as needed into a document that's open for editing.

[Monika Ambrozowicz_Seibert_]

Hi @Todd Lewis, you can try a marketplace app Properties, it may have what you need. It lets you create fields grouped into property groups (but you can also use only one field - text area - if that's what you need) that you can insert on different pages using one macro. Quick and easy. Then you you can make edits directly on the page if you want.