Create and collaborate on content
The beauty of Confluence Cloud is in its power and flexibility. It’s easy to create rich, dynamic content, and it all starts with the page – the live document where your content is housed. In this guide, you’ll learn how to use Confluence to create and edit pages, add content, find unpublished drafts, set page restrictions, and more.
If you’re a Confluence Data Center or Server user, check out this tutorial on how to create and edit pages in Confluence.
Create a new page
It’s easy to build content in Confluence Cloud: just click Create, then fill your page with text, tables, images, and other content. Unlike a traditional Word doc, the pages you make in Confluence live online. Anyone with access to your Confluence site can see what you write (as long as you want them to). This section will help you find the right template for your needs; understand the difference between drafts and published pages; control who can see, edit, and comment on pages; and use labels to organize your content.
Templates
Confluence Cloud comes with 70+ templates to help you create pages for just about anything, from meeting notes to product requirements to your marketing plan. These templates come with everything you need to make beautiful, effective, and dynamic content.
To create a page from a template, click Create and select the template you’d like to use. For more detailed information on page templates in Confluence, see our documentation.
If you can’t find what you’re looking for in the gallery, you can install additional templates from the Atlassian Marketplace, edit existing templates to better meet your team’s needs, and even create your own templates.
Drafts and published pages
When you create a new page, it lives as a draft until you publish it – it won’t appear in the page tree, activity feeds, or search results (once published, your page will appear in all of these locations unless it’s 
). Your drafts are automatically saved, even if you don’t publish them. To see your unpublished drafts, click Recents > Drafts from the menu at the top.
Don’t want everyone to know you’ve published a new version? Select Publish without notifying watchers from the more actions menu (•••) in the top right (next to the Close button).
Page restrictions
By default, anyone with access to a space can see (and potentially comment on or edit) the pages in it. To edit restrictions for a page after it has been published, tap the lock icon in the top right (next to the Share button when you’re viewing the page) and choose an option from the dropdown menu. To learn more about page restrictions and how they interact with site and space permissions, check out the Confluence Cloud documentation.
Why are pages open by default?
Confluence is designed with a transparent and connected structure to ensure everyone can access the information and context they need to do their best work. When everyone has visibility into team projects, goals, and strategy, it’s easier to maintain alignment across teams and prevent institutional knowledge from getting lost when employees switch roles or leave the company.
You can restrict a page before you publish it, too. Just tap the lock icon next to the Publish button as you’re editing your draft. Once you’ve restricted a draft, even someone with the link can’t view it unless they have the right permissions.
Labels
To keep your content organized, you can add labels to pages and attachments. This makes it easier to identify similar content, and since you can filter search results by label, it also makes it a snap to find.
To add a label to a page you’re editing:
- Tap ••• to open the more actions menu, then select Add labels
- Enter the name of the label you’d like to add, then hit enter ⏎ to create it
- Tap Add to add the label to the page
- Tap Close
To search for all content with a given label, use the labelText: prefix. For example, to see all pages and attachments with the documentation label, type labelText:documentation into the search bar.
Edit an existing page
Confluence pages are living, breathing documents, which can be updated when things change. The work of updating a page happens in the editor, where you can carefully craft the look, feel, and functionality of each page.
To edit a published page, click the pencil icon in the top right or type e while viewing it.
Editing features
Content is created in the editor. This is where you can format text, control page layout, and more:
- Add images and other media: Drag pictures, videos, and other files onto a page to upload them.
- Use markdown and code snippets: Format text inline with markdown or type /code to add a snippet.
- Adjust layout and page width: Choose from a two- or three-column display in regular, wide, or full width.
- Create smart links automatically: Paste in a URL for a Jira issue or Confluence page to create a smart link that updates itself dynamically when you make changes to the source content.
You can also add page enhancements like actions and roadmaps, and even integrate with other apps. Here are just a few of the most popular page enhancements in Confluence Cloud:
Page enhancement | Description | Slash command |
|---|---|---|
| Date | Description Add today’s date to your page or select another date to add from the calendar. | Slash command // or /date |
| Info panel | Description Create a colorful panel to highlight information. There are five kinds of panels:
| Slash command /panel |
| Table of contents | Description Create a dynamic table of contents. | Slash command /toc |
| Jira issue | Description Embed a Jira issue or a filtered list of issues. | Slash command /jira or paste in the issue URL |
| Attachments | Description Create a list of all the attachments on the page. | Slash command /attachments |
| Code snippet | Description Create a code block with syntax highlighting. | Slash command /code snippet |
| Status label | Description Add a custom status label. | Slash command /status |
| Table | Description Insert a table. | Slash command /table |
| Expand | Description Insert expandable text. | Slash command /expand |
| Decision | Description Capture and summarize decisions. | Slash command /decision |
| Roadmap planner | Description Create a simple, visual roadmap for planning projects, software releases, and more. | Slash command /roadmap planner |
Use the slash command to find and add page enhancements quickly. Type / while editing to see all available options, or check out the list above for information on popular page enhancements.
Unpublished changes and versions
When you edit a page, the changes you make are automatically saved and synced, so anyone else who edits the page will see them. However, people viewing the page won’t see those changes until you publish them. Every time you publish changes, Confluence launches a new version of the page and stores it in the version history. This allows you to track changes over time and makes it easy to revert to a previous version as needed, so it’s a good idea to visit the save point frequently.
If you aren’t happy with the changes you’ve made to a page, you can discard them by choosing ••• > Revert to last published version.
Collaborate on work
Building in Confluence Cloud makes it easy to share and collaborate on work. With its collaborative features, employees at every level have a voice to contribute, share, and receive feedback. This section will introduce you to these features and help you understand how they work so you and your colleagues can work effectively together.
Collaborative editing
Up to 12 people can edit a page at the same time. Changes save and sync automatically, in real-time, so everyone editing sees the same thing. The avatars near the publish button tell you who is editing a page, and the + next to the avatars lets you invite more people to edit with you.
To invite someone to collaborate with you on an unpublished draft, copy the URL from your browser’s address bar and send it to them. The URL will contain the word “edit.”
Sharing and watching
Share pages and posts with your teammates to invite them to collaborate with you and solicit their feedback. To share a page, tap the Share button in the top right while viewing it.
You can also watch pages, blog posts, and even entire spaces to receive notifications whenever they get updated. To watch a page, type w or tap the watch icon ( 
) in the top right when viewing it. To view the entire space that page is in, tap the eye icon ( ), then check Watch all content in this space.
Review space permissions and page restrictions before you share a page. Only people with access to view the page will be able to see it, even if you share it with them.
Comments and likes
Commenting on your teammate’s work fosters a culture of openness and engagement, and soliciting comments on your own work can help you level-up by discovering a new perspective. Leave a page comment to respond to the content as a whole, or use inline comments to respond to a specific section or sentence.
To leave an inline comment:
- Highlight the text you’d like to respond to
- Tap Comment
- Enter your text and tap Save
You can also like pages, posts, and comments in Confluence Cloud. When you do, the author will receive a notification to let them know.
If enough people like and comment on a page or post content, it will appear on the Popular tab of the Activity section in the sidebar.
Setup your site and spaces
Learn how to set up a Confluence site and organize content in spaces.
Navigate Confluence
Learn how to navigate Confluence Cloud so you can find the information you need quickly.