How do I revert to the default text color in the Confluence 4.x editor?
Asked by Allan Johnstone:

I tagged a bunch of headings in a certain color and saved to check the look, but I ended up changing the color scheme to accomplish this as the color choices didn't fit my desired design scheme, so now I want to use the new default color that I set in the color scheme, but I see no option in the color picker to turn off the current choice, nor does the new default color appear to be in the choices available. Unfortunately, I have made a lot of text changes that I don't want to lose, so reverting to an older page version is not an attractive choice. I know I could copy all of the text into a text editor, then just re-tag all of the paragraphs, etc, but this is long page with many code examples, graphics, and tables, so I don't want to have to reformat the entire page.

Is there an easy way to revert to the (new) default text color?

Thanks for any help.


Answers:
author: Matt
body: I wonder if 'Clear Formatting' from the [editor toolbar](http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Using+the+Editor#UsingtheEditor-TheToolbar) would set it back to the default color?

You would then just need to reapply the heading style.

comments: author: Allan Johnstone
body: I did try your suggestion, Matt, and I did get it to work, but the editor certainly acts strangely. I did the "Clear Formatting" on a heading, which changed it to "Paragraph" format. When I changed that back to the heading, most of the body of my entire page was then formatted as Heading 2.

I consider my original question answered, but that is pretty disconcerting behavior for the editor. To change all of these headings in this page (and there are lots), I'm going to have to save the page after every successful removal of the color formatting because I may have to cancel all changes if the entire page is bizarrely formatted as (almost) all headings. (The bulleted and numbered lists mostly missed being formatted as headings.)


author: Matt
body: Hey Allan -- that's very disconcerting indeed! A couple of questions for you:

1) What version of Confluence are you running?

2) How did you get the original content into the page? Did you create it inside the Confluence editor or did you paste it in from an external source?


author: Allan Johnstone
body: Matt,

I am running Confluence 4.0.4.

I saved the page as a PDF at work (Confluence 3.5), then copied the text from the PDF into my home version of Confluence (4.0.4) and applied the formatting manually.

I am happy to provide any info that will help to solve this problem and improve Confluence. I quite like the tool, although I am seeing a few issues with the new editor. FWIW, I always liked the old "Reveal Codes" feature back in WordPerfect 4.5(?) and 5.0, so keeping a similar option in the editor would be good as far as I'm concerned. It seems to give you much greater control of formatting. I understand that most users prefer a WYSIWYG editor, but I work in XML (DITA) and XHTML most of the time, so I sort of miss access to the underlying markup.

Cheers,

Allan


author: Matt
body: Thanks Allan. I think copying and pasting from the PDF is what's causing the issue here. You might want to try copying the wiki markup of the page from 3.5 and pasting it into 4.0.4 using the Insert Wiki Markup Dialog (Command/Control + SHIFT + D).


author: Matt
body: Also, we've made many, many bug fixes since 4.0.4. I'd encourage you, if possible, to upgrade to 4.1.5 , our latest release.


author: Allan Johnstone
body: Thanks for the tips.

I now consider this issue resolved.


author: Joe Clark
body: I think if you just set the text in the editor back to black (the default default), then it should get saved with "no" colour, which will then cause your color scheme choices to be applied to the text.

comments: author: Joe Clark
body: Oh, they did end up black? Sorry... i was kind of guessing. :-) This is the kind of thing a source-mode editor would be great for!

I don't think there's any way to change the colour picker in the editor, short of editing the Confluence source and re-building it from scratch.


author: Allan Johnstone
body: That made them black. I guess I can live with that.

Is there any way to add more/change the colors of the in-editor text color selector?


author: Allan Johnstone
body: This isn't a major issue for me, but I do consider this a "regression" in the editor. Can I urge you to file a Jira issue on this?


author: Joe Clark
body: Consider me urged: <https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-24666>