How to modify your page layout
The layout of your pages can have a big impact on how they're read, and layouts, used well, allow you to position text, images, macros, charts, and much more, to have the best visual impact.
There are two ways to modify the layout of a Confluence page:
- Use page layouts to add sections and columns
- Use macros to add sections and columns.
Page layouts provide a simple, visual representation of your page layout in the editor, while the macros are more flexible and allow for greater complexity in your layout.
Use page layouts
The page layouts tool allows you to structure your page using horizontal sections and vertical columns. By adding multiple sections with different column configurations you can build quite complex layouts very easily.
Screenshot: Editor view of a page showing three sections with different column configurations.
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Start by adding a horizontal section to your page.
To add a section:
- Choose the Page Layout
button in the toolbar
The Page Layout toolbar appears. - Choose Add Section
The new section appears below your current content, with the boundaries of the section(s) indicated by dotted lines (the dotted lines aren't visible when you view the page).
To change the column layout in a section:
- Place your cursor in the section you wish to change
- Choose a layout from the page layout toolbar (for example, two columns or three columns)
Any text, images or macros in your section are not lost when you change the column layout. When you decrease the number of columns, Confluence will move your content to the left. When you increase the number of columns, Confluence will add blank columns to the right of your existing content.
To move a section to another part of the page:
- Place your cursor in the section you wish to move
- Choose the Move up or Move down buttons
The section and all of its content will be moved above or below other sections on the page.
To delete a section:
- Place your cursor in the section you wish to remove
- Choose Remove section
The section and all of its content will be removed.
Notes about Page Layouts
- Column width – The width of the columns are fixed. If you need more than three columns, or columns of a specific width, you should use the Section and Column macros described below.
- Very wide tables – The width of each column is set to a percentage of the page width. The icons in the drop-down menu indicate the relative widths for each layout. In most cases, Confluence will adapt the width of the columns to fit the width of the page. If a column includes an item that's too wide for it, you'll see a horizontal scroll bar when viewing the page.
The Section and Column macros
You can use the Section and Column macros to add a set of columns to the page. The Section macro defines an area that will contain the columns. You can have as many sections as you like. Within each section, you can have as many columns as you like.
The Section and Column macros are useful if you want to define a specific percentage or pixel width for each column.
To add a section and some columns to a page:
- In the Confluence editor, choose Insert > Other Macros
- Find the Section macro, select it and insert it onto the page
- Choose Insert > Other Macros again
- Find and insert the Column macro
- Add your content to the column
Insert as many columns as you like within the section.
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| You should always have at least one column macro within a section macro. Using a section macro without any column macros can negatively affect page loading time. |
Screenshot: A section and two columns in the editor
When you see the page in view mode, the above layout is displayed like this:
Content for column 1 goes here
Macro parameters
Parameters are options that you can set to control the content or format of the macro output. Where the parameter name used in Confluence storage format or wikimarkup is different to the label used in the macro browser, it will be listed below in brackets (example).
Parameters of the Section macro
Parameter | Default | Description |
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Show Border | false | Select this option to draw a border around the section and columns. Note: Without a Column macro , the border will not be displayed correctly. |
Parameters of the Column macro
Parameter | Default | Description |
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Column Width | 100% of the page width, divided equally by the number of columns in the section. | Specify the width of the column, in pixels (for example, |
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| All content within your section must be enclosed within a Column macro, otherwise the section layout will not work as expected |
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The Labeled content page
If you're viewing a page or post that has labels or displays the Attachments macro, you can choose any label to go to the Labeled content page for the space. Choose Popular Labels or All Labels from the cog at the top-right – to view the most-used labels or all labels in the space – or choose See content from all spaces from the cog to view labeled content from all spaces in your Confluence site.
Screenshot: The Labeled content page
The Popular Labels option displays a word cloud, where the bigger a label is displayed, the more popular it is. Choose any label to view content tagged with that label.
You can also navigate to the labels view for a space by entering the following URL (replace SPACEKEY with the space's key):
<your.Confluence.site>/labels/listlabels-alphaview.action?key=SPACEKEY
Search by label
You can use the ' labelText: ' prefix to search specifically for content that has a specific label. For example, if you're looking for pages with the label 'chocolate', type labelText:chocolate into the search field in the Confluence header. For more examples of searching by label, see Confluence Search Syntax.
Search for labeled pages using a URL
Entering a URL with an appended label or labels is another way to search for pages with particular labels.
In your browser's address bar, enter the following URL and press enter: http://<your.Confluence.site>/label/foo+bar
The Labeled content page will load, showing search results for pages with the both labels, 'foo' and 'bar'. Replace 'foo' and 'bar' with the label(s) you want to search for, and separate multiple labels with a + symbol.
Adding a label to your results:
Once you're on the Labeled content page, you can add more labels to your search by choosing them from the Related Labels list at the top-right of the page. Each label is listed with a plus (+) sign.
If you want to remove labels from your search, locate the included labels at the top of the page and choose the label(s) you want to remove. Each included label will be listed with a minus (–) sign| . |
Remove labels
When viewing page, blog post, or attachment labels, an x appears alongside each label. Choose the x to remove the label.
You can't remove, consolidate or manage labels directly. A label is created by adding it to a page for the first time, and ceases to exist once its been removed from all pages it was added to.
If you have deleted pages that contain a label, you may need to purge the deleted pages from the space's trash to ensure that the label disappears too.