I'd like to see the option for layout to have or not have borders in published mode. My reason is there are limitations to nesting cloud macros. I have a page I'd like to use layouts on, but the structure of the page seems random and doesn't appear uniform as it would with tables. Tables cannot be nested inside of tables in cloud. So I've tried layout but the content seems to "hang in the air" due to lack of lines/borders to provide structure.

I agree with Ines/Diana. The latest visual update is frustrating. Please bring back the borders on the columns when in edit mode.

Removing the layout borders in edit mode makes it difficult to see the boundaries of existing layouts, and even more so when adding a new layout without any content yet. In addition, we have some legacy pages that used the single column layout from on-prem, which the Cloud fabric editor does seem to support (the dropdown just shows "Column").

However columns don't support certain features like fixed width tables (they're always full width). When I was editing an existing page I couldn't figure out why a table could not be resized. After a lot of frustration I discovered that the content was within a single "Column" layout but it's impossible to tell now that the borders are gone. I had to hover my mouse just right on the boundaries of the layout to find it.

I put together some screenshots showing the problem: https://imgur.com/a/xBClZGu

In the first screenshot, there is no gripper to resize the table (the visible gripper is to resize the image, which also doesn't work when in a table within a column):

In the next screenshot, if I hover my cursor just right you can see it turns to a hand:

And in the last screenshot, if I click it selects the column and you can see "Column" shown in the dropdown at the bottom.

Ines C. nailed my sentiments in her comment. The recent update to panels doesn't feel like an improvement.

Hi Team,

It looks like an update to page layouts has been released today.

Unfortunately, the experience did not get better, it got worse. I'm having a hard time with editing, adding and removing layouts.

It became really difficult to see where the layouts are, without the grey borders, moving layouts around, adding and removing spacing between layouts, etc. Besides this, the page gets stuck in loading.

Is it possible to review and improve this? Thanks!

Need single column option back

+1 Single-column layout 

Just switched to Confluence Cloud. Has there seriously been no way to choose a single column layout in the new editor "experience"? For 5 years? Such a fundamental requirement. I'm certainly just missing something.

I really appreciate that this issue finally is "In progress" state.

One note: the last status update should state “Status Update 09 January 2025" not 2024. We have waited for this in over five years!

+1 Single-column layout 

Also, it's very cumbersome to add/remove spacing between layouts. 

Need single column option back

Hi! An opportunity to use a single column has to be a main part for the representation of documents in Confluence. Without this feature the tool is useles. Please extend your solution.

Please give us back the Single Column feature. I use a lot of different sections for one page that need a variety degree of columns. The first section is two columns - one for a quick summary and a Table of Content on the side.
Underneath that I want a single column to add a large table with information in it. Now I'm left with a blank space next to a table that could be using that entire space.

I want 4 columns please! I have 4 themes in my project and now can't use the layouts feature anymore  

I would just like to add that my team and I also sorely miss the ability to use a single collum!

To echo everyone else, this feature – having a single column – was so helpful when building out a page over time and having to reorder.  That was the primary use case for me to put things into sections – the ease of reordering.  Please add this function back that layouts start ast 1 to 4 columns.

Single column and the ability to move blocks up and down PLEASEEEEEEEEEEE. 
I used this so much over 5+ years. It really makes a difference keeping your content neatly organized. 
Seems like there's key evidence of high usage based on this thread... 

I need single column layout! Extensively used by my organisation on the server version.

I need a single column layout as it was available in an old Editor as well. Please add it. And some other options from old Editor. E.g. colors like red (not dark brown as now) etc. Please make it possible to choose between old and new Editor. I do not like a new Editor, it miss a lot of options, is user-unfriendly and it takes more time to work with it.

Vote for the last issue listed in Issue Links -  CONFCLOUD-68508

The request wasn't "make it so we won't want a single column", it was "allow a single column".  No part of this has gone away, we STILL need and WANT a single column layout back.

The new editor works different. There is no need for a single column page layout, therefore I know understand, that this request is obsolet.

Is there really no update since March 2020 on this?  

Hello Support-Team

I really need the single column in the layouts. Help me!

Best Regards

Patrick

Hi!

Had to ask ChatGPT 3.5 on how to move a section up or down a page.  ChatGPT 3.5 doesnt know anything after Septmber 2021 but that doesn't matter for this issue

The answer? Copy and an delete the old one. Then paste the section where you want to move to.  Cumbersome!

In the old editor you where able to move a section up and down pressing an arrow in the section menu. Easy!

Atlassian: This might seem like a minor issue, but for us who do updates of wiki-pages daily basis, this is a kind of showstopper. We are cosidering to increase the use of Confluence in our org, but this issue has to be addressed first.
 
 

----Me: Are you an expert on the atlassian confluence cloud service?

ChatGPT
I'm familiar with Atlassian Confluence and can provide general information and assistance related to it. Confluence is a popular collaboration and documentation platform developed by Atlassian, designed to help teams work together on projects, share information, and create documentation. Confluence Cloud is the cloud-based version of this platform.

While I can provide general information, tips, and troubleshooting advice about Confluence Cloud, please keep in mind that my knowledge is based on information available up until September 2021, and I might not be aware of specific updates or changes that have occurred after that date. If you have specific questions or need detailed technical assistance, I recommend reaching out to Atlassian's official documentation, support, or community forums for the most accurate and up-to-date information.

Me: on a page usage of layouts is very useful. I have a page with several layouts . I want to move a layout up or down on the page. how to do that?

ChatGPT
As of my last knowledge update in September 2021, Atlassian Confluence Cloud doesn't have native support for directly moving layouts up or down on a page like you can with some other types of content. The layout structure in Confluence Cloud is typically determined by the sections and columns you've set up on a page.

If you want to rearrange the content within a layout, here's a workaround you can use:

1. Copy Content: Copy the content from the layout you want to move.

1. Delete Content: Delete the content from the original layout.

1. Paste Content: Paste the copied content into the desired layout or section.

1. Adjust Formatting: You might need to adjust formatting and reinsert any macros or special elements that were present in the original layout.

It's fairly clear that investment into some Atlassian tools is quite the gamble as is the case here with this publishing part of the Atlassian suite.  With collaborative documentation tools that are feature laden and "natural" for any person that has touched a computer in the last 25-30 years (like Office 365), there is simply little to no reason to invest in Confluence, when with a single decision by Atlassian, all past work can be rendered a giant mess.  It's a clear indication of an organization that is out of touch with customers' usage of the product/service that is offered first of all, competition second of all, and lastly, incredibly slow to react.  About as non-agile as one can imagine.

Pretty angry since the single column layout and moving sections up and down was a very important way to keep my wikis organized.   The fact that you didn't think this was critical enough to have in MVP or shortly thereafter is...disappointing.

I also want to have the single column layout as was available and used extensively by my organisation on the server version.

Time to move back to SharePoint

Yes please give us the ability to AT LEAST customize the widths of the columns. Ideally we should be able to select between 1, 2 or 3 columns and then be given values, or percentages as we had previously, to customize the widths of those columns. 

Me and my team really need that function, so please bring it back!

I should be able to create a new section with ONE column.  Only 2 or three columns is madness.  Bring back my HTML view/edit and I'll fix it myself.

Please, please, please bring this back.  Our team needs the option to move sections.

should be able to modify the width of the columns

The layouts are current entirely unusable as you cannot modify the width of the columns!

Why give a 3-column layout with small left and right columns but then go and make them huge?!

It renders it impossible to create a decent amount of content on a page without either putting links to sub/related-pages at the top where they distract from the pages own content or at the bottom where people will invariably not notice them amongst the primary content of the page!

Building a standard content-with-links-on-a-side-column now results in rubbish pages. 

Confluence Cloud pages now look oafish & clumsy.

I am trying to do the most basic editing in Confluence Cloud. A single-column section is one of these. I am going to go back to my Confluence Data Center server. If you can't offer the most basic editing function like this or borders on images or Panel, please do not force people to go to Confluence Cloud until the product is more mature. Thank you.

Confluence Product Manager @Divya Sriram, pls do get some attention for this issue!

Its affecting directly how useable Confluence is.  New users who don't have any experience with the old editor will just believe the service has a editor with very restricted features. Those users will not upvote nor find this issue because they don't know what's missing.  It's affecting the usability of the editor.  They will just come to the conclusion that the Confluence editor has an editor that's not any good.

I did a list out of all open CONFCLOUD issues ordered by votes.  Of all the open issues CONFCLOUD-67648 is on the 44th place in the list with 315 upvotes.  Looks like the issues with more votes are mainly nice to have features.

I guess my point is, this issue has less attention by the Atlassian Confluence team that it should have.

And pls do not tell me that there is an option buried down the template list where the old editor is available.

Please bring back the single column section and ability to move sections up and down. Essential for organizing a page that is constantly evolving.

I'm not sure what happened to the easy-to-use, super versatile Confluence we used to have just a year or two ago, and what we have today, but I'm disappointed to see everything harder to do, and lots of features eliminated. For example, being able to create section with a single column format after selecting multiple column sections. Another loss is being able to move sections up and down. Now I have to create a new section and cut & paste it into where I want it to go. What were you thinking, Atlassian??

This change on the new editor made impossible to migrate our old page from the old editor format to the new one, because of lot of missing tools.

It's like replacing a newspaper with a 80mm roll. Not the same result, very hard to correctly represent information...

It's

like

writting

this

way

so

well

optimized

for 

a mobile

only

but

not

a

computer

screen

Self-inflicted wounds;
"Atlassian User" is
synonym for pain.

I am not sure it makes sense to combine all three of these requests - more layouts is definitely a nice-to-have, "moving sections up or down" is a needed feature request, and not having "return to single column layout" is what most people would call a bug or a wildly missed requirement.

I expect we'll be waiting for all three of these for a long, long time, but items 2&3 should get immediate attention as they have frustrating affects on the Confluence Cloud editor used by all Confluence Cloud users and impacting any usage of 'sections'.

Any ETA on when this issue might be fixed? The ticket is two years old now it would be great if someone could take a look at it and get the functionality working properly. This issue feels more like a bug than a design choice or decision since it seems unlikely that the update would have intentionally eliminated the base use case for sections - which is just a vanilla section in the page without any columns

What - no single column layout option?  Really?

Please read and follow this simple best practice:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment

I'm in the process of migrating several clients' technical documentation from Confluence Server to Cloud and it's been a complete disaster so far.

The cloud version lacks so many features that we've had to restyle most of the content and remove much of the layout. Wide two column layout and single column layout on the same page: Nope. Info panels without icons: Can't do. Code block inside a panel: Sure, but only if you put the code block in a bullet list. The list is endless. A simple markdown based solution would handle the layout task better. It's pathetic.

On top of that the performance is horrible. Complex documents renders in minutes! and editing those documents is even worse; It can take several seconds from a mouse click to the cursor is moved - if it moves at all. The only reason you can get away with stuff like this is because of vendor lock-in.

Given Atlassian's track record I have no faith that the problems will be resolved in a timely manner. I've been promoting and using your products for over 15 years and if there's one thing I've learned with Jira, Bamboo, Bitbucket and Confluence it's that one should either accept how things are or move on ASAP, because no matter how obviously serious a usability or feature issue is, you just don't care.

At this point I think our efforts are better spent finding a replacement. You have zero goodwill left.

I'm also confused on how to use the sections. I would like to have an option to add a section with ONE column.

I have been used to using server for 10 years. I have to do a project for a client who is using the Cloud version. 10 seconds after opening a page, I was trying to figure out how to use sections. How can such a basic function that has existed in the Server edition for years be left out?

I've got used to using the single column layout outside of the layout sections now but it's very limiting. Mostly because you can choose variable widths for the layout sections but you can only choose one single width for the whole single column area of the page. I'd rather be able to stick to the narrow default width and then in certain sections put a wide single column in. Why is this new editor so restrictive?

One year Anniversary for your status update.  When will the "under consideration" period end, Atlassian?

I'm not only missing the single column layout,
but in addition there's no easy way to "uncolumn" a section already filled with content.

And, btw.: STRG+A = "copy all column content" does not work in cloud

For a section with 3 columns i have to:

1. mark with mouse, c&p 1st column
2. mark with mouse, c&p 2nd column
3. mark with mouse, c&p 3rd column
4. delete section

I need 4 or more steps, if marking with mouse doesn't work the first time (it happens with sometimes tables, complex formatting or macros).
I need 4 or more steps for a feature that existed before!!!

I think I've been following this thread for 18 months. They're never going to bring it back. Just say you don't care Confluence.

Please bring back single columns. They were one of the most useful confluence features for layout management. The ease of moving sections was unparalleled. Now it just feels like I'm editing a difficult word document. 

I hope everyone who is commenting here is sharing the link to this issue within their own organizations so we can get more "upvotes" on this issue; I think that's the only way we'll get it resolved.  I've done so within my organization. 

+1 
Agree with comments above. 

It is very confusing to have two different editors. We are trying to get as many colleagues as possible to contribute to our internal wiki, having two different editor setups does not make that task any easier.  

That being said, the new editor is overly simplified. An example is inserting pictures. In legacy you can easily place 5 pictures on a page in a single row. In the new editor this is almost impossible. I can make three columns with one pic in each, and maybe also put two pics in one column by aligning them to the left and right. But this is almost impossible and the pictures jumps all over the place. Best bet is to stack them vertically, which makes for more scrolling and unused space. 

Formatting info boxes are also a feature I use a lot. Maybe it is a bit easier in the new editor, however it is not possible to place images inside the boxes any more.

Another is URLs and links to other pages on wiki. Too simple. The search often does not work. Usually I have to open a second wiki tab, find the page I want, then go back to editor and it will pop up. 

These are some examples, I got more, but to sum up. We need several of the basic old features in the new editor. 

An update on this would be greatly appreciated as it seems like several people  (and likely hundreds if not thousands more) wrestle with this on a daily basis. (Most just won't take the time to engage these Communities b/c they tend not to produce results).

I read the referenced page explaining the use of the legacy editor still being available.  I do not see where that is an option for me in my organization.  And then we would end up in worse shape in the long run with different pages under different editor functions - like that won't be confusing to users? I was going to post a screen shot of the message we get when we start having different pages in different versions, but the system won't let me.  It says this:   "Macro can't be edited This macro was added to a page that used the legacy editor.  It can't be edited after converting the page because this macro doesn't exist in the new editor." 

This issue was raised 14 months ago and the last update was more than 7 months ago.  Will Atlassian be bringing back the functionality?  Or do we need to just stop watching this issue? 

Thank you.

Leanne is 100% right about the issue. I've used Confluence daily for the past 2 years and hate the new editor.  I can't believe they deliberately removed the ability to move completed sections around the page. It's exponentially harder to add a new step to existing content. More emojis is not worth the loss of functionality. 

Leanne has articulated the EXACT use case for the reinstatement of this functionality. 

Atlassian's product managers, please listen.

What Leanne says!

Atlassian, why on earth isn't this essential functionality re-established yet?

I would like to see more flexibility in columns. Having 4 columns (instead of just 3) would increase functionality for me. Also, being able to change the width of the columns to any width, not just the pre-defined column widths.

One of the best things about documenting in Confluence is being able to use sections for content.  It leaves one free to draft documentation and then worry about perfecting it later (1 column / 2 column / move up / move down, etc).  Without the single column section functionality of before, it is impossible to move the single column sections and yes.....we end up having to copy / paste everything.  It's even worse trying to revert from having a panel in a 2 column layout and moving that to a single column layout.  PLEASE bring back this important functionality.  Also, how about better "drag and drop" editing?  That would be helpful too.