Is it possible to 'Show as link' for an PDF attachment in the new editor?
Asked by Marcel van der Vliet:

I used to attach pdf documents to a page and used the 'Show as link' option to only show a link. With the new editor how can I change the icons to links?


Answers:
author: Maarten Thomassen
body: Plus one!

We use the show as link extensively on our company confluence. With the new approach our pages get way to long because the link icons take up way to much vertical space. Please add back the old feature!

comments: author: Brad Holmes Consultant
body: In the old editor the rendering of the PDF was actually useful. You could make out the title of the document and maybe a little more. If I am remembering correctly you could also resize it. The current rendering of the pdf is not as useful, and it would be preferable to be able to add the link as text rather than as an Icon.


author: Cam Fortin
body: I have a serious suggestion - please stop removing features from your "next gen" versions of JIRA/Confluence etc. I'm really starting to ponder a switch off Atlassian software because this happens again and again. It's NUTS a company dedicated to helping people create and manage products does such a terrible job doing exactly that.

comments: author: Stephen Sykes
body: Hallelujah.


author: Eric Hanley
body: Hi Cam - you're not alone in this disappointment. JIRA/Confluence was a beautiful product until about 2016. Today it is almost unusable for the exact reason you've stated.


author: Alexander Tarasyuk
body: Inconvenient piece of sh....


author: David Chrastecky
body: In stead of incrementally rolling out new Features Atlassian seems to be incrementally removing existing features.


author: Marcel van der Vliet
body: This does not help


author: Felix Niederer
body: Please fix this! It makes for ugly confluence pages.


author: Shannon S
body: Hello Marcel,

Thank you for reporting this to us! I noticed something similar the other day when I was troubleshooting, so I reported this request below:

* [CONFCLOUD-65302](https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-65302) *Ability to link text to an attachment in editor*

As a workaround, you'll need to use the [Attachments macro](https://confluence.atlassian.com/confcloud/attachments-macro-724765160.html "Follow link") to obtain the URL of the attachment, and link text to that by pasting the link into the Link Macro.

Can you give that a try and let me know how it goes?

Regards,

Shannon

comments: author: Marcel van der Vliet
body: Hello Shannon, This does not help, I just want to display a single attachment as a single link. All I get is a static tile. If you want to see some screenshots (that for some reason do not paste into this comment (Jira works fine with these images)), check out: <https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFSERVER-38610>

I'm sorry, but the new editor really starts to become a real show stopper:

1. Centering of pages that you cannot change (Resulting in a lot of white-space)
2. Images where you cannot define Pixels or go to the original
3. Attachments that cannot be simply as a single link

All this worked seamlessly in the previous version. From what I read the reason for these changes is to support multiple devices. So I checked out my pages on a tablet, and they look really bad (no difference between old and new).

Also most (all) documentation does not help because what you find is old documentation that describes the old (and better) editor.


author: Marcel van der Vliet
body: Btw. You are right that you can get the URL from the attachment macro. But I refuse to call this a workaround (I know what happens to bugs where there is a workaround).

The main reason why I use Confluence is because it is easy and quick. I know HTML and what you propose is almost worse than start writing my own HTML.

This is not a workaround


author: Shannon S
body: Hello Marcel,

Thank you for sharing the link to Giuliano's feature request with me. Unfortunately it doesn't appear that your screenshots saved to the page. Please note that Giuliano's request was created in 2015, so it may not apply to the new editor, where my more recent feature request is more relevant. I've linked the two together at this time.

As we are rolling out the new editor, you may find that not all features have been implemented yet, including this one. For more information have a look below:

* [Confluence Editing Improvements](https://confluence.atlassian.com/confcloud/confluence-editing-improvements-945107733.html)

With my suggestion, this is unfortunately the only way at the moment that you can create a text link for an attachment. While I understand this is a clunky and isn't as easy as simply selecting **Show as Link**, it's the option we have at this time.

You can read more about the upcoming roadmap for the new editor below:

* [Confluence Cloud Editor Roadmap](https://confluence.atlassian.com/confcloud/confluence-cloud-editor-roadmap-967314556.html)

More importantly, there is a public thread here on Community which will give you the opportunity to share your feedback with the Product Manager:

* [Discussion: Try out the new editing experience](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-discussions/Try-out-the-new-editing-experience/td-p/1000813)

I would encourage you to bring your feedback there as well as sending it through your instance from the **Feedback** menu in your Confluence instance. This can be seen by clicking your avatar in the bottom left-hand corner.

Let me know if you have any questions about that.

Regards,

Shannon


author: Diana Chapman
body: Four years later and I am searching for the same information on showing a PDF as a single link. How wonderful to go from a quick and simple process to this "workaround". Not.


Tags: cloud

confluence-cloud