How can I revert to the default paragraph text color of #172B4D?

[jthorsta]

We are using Confluence 6.13.4 and I don't understand why the default paragraph text color is #172B4D when there is no way to pick this color from the color picker.

I've seen some posts where the advise is to:

• Remove formatting - I don't see any option like this
• Change the text color to black - but black isn't the default text color

This is annoying because when you read a specification where you have copied/pasted text in from various sources, some are black and some are this off-black #172B4D and there doesn't appear to be any way to fix this. It's just noticeable that the text color changes throughout the document, which looks unprofessional.

Is there a solution?

How about adding a color tile or menu to the color picker called "Default"?

[hdh1326]

Hi @jthorsta ,

This is a very good question and one that I had as well. Here is a bug for Atlassian to fix this issue in a future release. They are assessing impact, So please go to the bug and vote so they take it seriously. https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-65230



You bring up the option to Remove Formatting, which from what I found, is the easiest way to fix the issue. You can find it under the "More" dropdown.

[Shannon S]

Hello @jthorsta,

Welcome to Atlassian Community, and thank you for bringing this up!

As of the Confluence 6.7 release, we introduced the Confluence New Look. You can review the Confluence 6.7 Release Notes for details on that. (See Confluence gets a fresh, new look.)

This is based on the new color palette found on the Atlassian.design page. Any version of Confluence 6.7 and later, will see this dark blue color as the default text, rather than black.

There was previously a feature request to be able to modify the default paragraph text in the UI as you are requesting, but it has since been closed, since it's not in our upcoming roadmap. I'll include that below so it's on record:

•  CONFSERVER-28178 Add default paragraph text to color schemes

The good news is that you can modify the Confluence stylesheet, both globally and on a space-by-space basis. This will affect how your Confluence site is displayed. See Styling Confluence with CSS for further details on that.

I've found some examples of CSS you can use to fix this, which I'll include below.

1. Go to  > General Configuration > Stylesheet. 
2. Click on edit, and add the following:

   #main-content.wiki-content {
    color: #000000; !important
   }
   

3. Save your changes.
4. Refresh your Confluence page.
5. The page content should now appear as black, but you may need to clear your browser cache if you don't yet see it.

Now, there are some other parts of the page that might still appear in black, and in those cases you'll have to also specify their colors in your CSS.

For example, the following will also change page titles, body text, and various headings:

#main-content.wiki-content {  
 color: #000000; !important  
}  
  
#title-text a {  
 color: #000000; !important  
}  
  
#main-content.wiki-content h1{  
 color: #000000; !important  
}  
  
#main-content.wiki-content h2{  
 color: #000000; !important  
}  
  
#main-content.wiki-content h3{  
 color: #000000; !important  
}  
  
#main-content.wiki-content h4{  
 color: #000000; !important  
}  
  
#main-content.wiki-content h5{  
 color: #000000; !important  
}  

You can inspect the page using your browser if there are any areas of Confluence that you still need to update the color, but you can follow the same procedure modify other parts of your Confluence site.

Could you give that a try and let me know if it helps?

Regards,

Shannon

[jthorsta]

Thank you for the quick and detailed response. From my perspective what you did in Version 6.7 is create a new theme, make it the default, and then made it somewhat difficult for users to use that theme in common use cases.

Specifically what I mean is that when building a Confluence document by copying and pasting text from various other sources, other text colors like Black (the default in many systems like MS Word, Outlook, and Google Drive Documents) will be introduced to the Confluence page as Black text. Once this happens you cannot change the copied text to look like your nice new dark blue color text.

It appears that the ticket CONFSERVER-28178 was an enhancement to address this issue but it may not have been described properly. Rather than introduce one new color tile for the dark blue #172B4D why not introduce a way to *remove* the inline color and *revert* to the color defined in the page theme. This is what you see in MS Word with the "Automatic" option I believe.

For now, I'll need to be careful when using my company's Confluence system to always paste text with the Edit > Paste and Match Style option. But this means I can't use CTRL-V which is a hard habit to break. And when collaborating with others users (a main use case for Confluence) and they add text in without following the special steps, their text will come in Black and then can't be fixed to match your default page style.

I'd recommend a new enhancement similar to the one you closed to allow user to *remove* custom color and revert to the default in the theme. This wouldn't just be for Paragraph text. It should be for Headings, etc., anything where user picked a color from the picker to override the default and now wants to revert to the color defined for that text element from the theme.

I don't think this would be very hard to do and would make Confluence much easier for heavy authors who want their pages to look good with your new dark blue color or any other custom color they may have defined in their page theme.

[Shannon S]

Hello,

Thank you for your recommendation regarding the feature request. 

You can create a new feature request by going to jira.atlassian.com and click Create at the top-right. Here, you can explain your situation, and add your recommendation for how to solve it. If you end up doing that, please feel free to share here!

Regards,

Shannon