Navigation When Editing Page?

[Andrew C]

Hello,

My team and I are potentially migrating to confluence for technical content creation (migrating away from word), and a consistent question from independent alpha groups is:

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If I have 100 headers, how do I navigate to each one like in Word (see image)

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There is some user angst when working/navigating such large pages. Google results are all geared towards "pages" but this would be specific to editing a specific page.

Does anyone have any suggestions/guidance on this feature request?

[WW · Accepted solution]

1. Run. Run fast away from Word.
2. You won't need to have hundreds of pages in a single document in Confluence. You should be splitting the content into separate pages so that it's more accessible. There are tons of built in macros to help with navigating the content on multiple pages or the same page.
3. If users still need to "navigate" their drafts before sharing with everyone, they can add page restrictions so that only they can view the page. Then they can save the page and navigate in View mode. But hopefully they'll get the hang of using multiple pages.

But really, Word and Confluence are not the same thing. You'll have a lot more freedom in how you are able to display and get to content in Confluence. It's not all just one really long document anymore.

It'll take users a little time to change the way they think/behave, just like with anything else new. But the thought of having to use Word documents to find content makes me cringe vs. all the possibilities in Confluence.

[Andrew C]

@WW I'm with you! Word is dated and we spend considerable amount of time trying to manage the weird quarks that are endemic with the software. So far I prefer confluence to any other tool we've used, but it's missing some critical tools (or what we as a working group deem "super necessary").

That said, I'm nervous to break sections into a separate pages as Confluence treats each child page as an appendix on export. I also never want that content to exist outside of the parent.

Do you know of a way to control/mitigate the above concerns?

Appreciate any guidance you'd be willing to share

[WW]

Again, it's a change of mindset and culture on how you'll organize your information.

Each page has a parent page, so you can keep your pages under a parent page if you want. It doesn't really matter though since you can point to pages in your space in different ways and even in other spaces.

You can also use the Include macros (Include page, and Excerpt and Excerpt include macros) to put content where you want it to go. I wouldn't "Include" hundreds of pages or it'll take forever for the page to load if it does.

I would explore the list of built-in macros available.

Exporting is also a mindset change. You shouldn't need to export pages unless it's for someone who doesn't have access to your Confluence instance.

If you really need to export pages, then just keep your pages in whatever order you need. You can edit the PDF export stylesheet, but I don't think that'll make a difference in the order in which each page is exported.

If you're talking about exporting multiple individual pages at the page level, then there's a way to export them together. Users with the space Export permission, are also able to export multiple pages at a time through Space tools -> Content tools.

Hopefully some of that helps.

[Mykenna Cepek · Accepted solution]

Confluence has "macros" which add functionality to pages. One such macro is the "Table of contents", which is extremely configurable and can easily handle the requirement you mention. More about it here:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/table-of-contents-macro-182682099.html

[Andrew C]

Hello @Mykenna Cepek ! Appreciate the response. Gave it a try and noticed is only works in preview or when published. Is there something that works while a page is in the process of being authored?

We need a tool to help content creators navigate their drafts.

Any guidance is appreciated

[Mykenna Cepek]

Not that I'm aware of, sorry.

I'm wondering if there is too much content per page? TLDR is a real thing. Probably not much you can do about that, just thought I'd make that observation.

[Andrew C]

@Mykenna Cepek Appreciate the suggestion. We are basically hoping we can replace Word with Confluence, and a deliverable may or may not be large. This is why we were hoping for some navigation tools for authors.

Do you know if Atlassian has a feature request page?

[WW]

A feature request page for Confluence Server/Data Center. :D :D :D :D

There are feature requests that have literally been sitting out there since 2011. I wouldn't bother.

They'll most likely tell you to get a plugin. You can explore the Atlassian Marketplace for all sorts of additional functionality.

[Mykenna Cepek]

As WW alludes to, Atlassian does have a way to contribute feature requests (more here). But many of us feel that's a broken process, overly relying on votes to put things on their radar.

If you've got support, I would engage them. Get your money's worth from talking to someone at Atlassian about your needs. On a good day they can point you to something, either in the Marketplace that might help, and/or in their product backlog that you can vote for.

[Andrew C]

Appreciate the heads up concerning feature requests. I will look into mustering support through our dedicated channels. Thank you again for all the help

[WW]

Hi @Andrew C , please accept one of the answers since it sounds like your question is about as resolved as it's going to get.

Thank you!

[Diana Ash]

All these answers don't answer the question.

The question was is it possible to naviagate  through the headers  on the page  in the edit mode. Like the way you can do it in Notion (though Notion is always in editing mode if you're the owner of the page, which is way more convenient, by the way)

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