New tables in Confluence Cloud are really, really awful.
Asked by dave_drexler:

I just want to vent a bit. I recently migrated from an older version of Confluence to a cloud instance, and I find the new table functionality appalling. It's broken - so much capability is just gone. No ability to control the width, adding and removing rows and columns is really wonky, formatting capability lost.

Tabbing through the table in edit mode is buggy and weird, trying to select a table, or just a row or cell is nearly impossible.

I used to enter a one-row, one-column table to put a TOC in a nice grey box - really fast and easy to do. Not anymore!

Also - while I'm venting: whose idea was it to change the link shortcut in the editor? Where I used to type '\[' and choose the most recent page(s), now I have to type '/link', and hit enter. From one keystroke to six! W...T...H...?

Whoever is in charge of UX at Atlassian needs a severe finger-shaking.


Answers:
author: Stan Sultanov
body: Agree. New tables are impossible to use. It almost seems like someone is trying to (why??) discourage people from using tables.


author: Carolynn Kemmerer
body: I totally agree. Not being able to control the width is awful! Also you can no longer embed a table within a table! Why take AWAY functionality????


author: Bruce Zhang
body: It is more than awful


author: Steve Phillips
body: Agree entirely. Having been a user of the non-cloud version of Confluence for years, I had intended to use it as the basis for documenting a new project I am working on. Having created a new account on Confluence Cloud however, the table functionality is embarrassingly bad, clumsy, inflexible, and a huge downgrade from the historical Confluence functionality. Quite remarkable that this made it past any UAT phase. Since virtually every page I would create would have multiple tables on it, the spectacularly bad implementation of tables on Confluence Cloud rules it out as a contender for my project. Disappointed.


author: Josh Gray
body: Totally agree. Does anyone know what the roadmap on this looks like? Given the first post was April of 2020 and it's now Jan 2021, and basic functionality like table sizing is still absent, it would be helpful to know if it's being considered.


author: Carolynn Kemmerer
body: It still doesn't show how to size the tables so they don't go totally across the page when you only have 2 columns.


author: Anneke Grant
body: Not being able to set the width is a real problem...

Especially if you only have one or two columns with not much data (width) in them! Looks really ugly.

Think I'm going to have to use the old editing experience to get around it...


author: Brian Son
body: seriously, you need to fire the guy who made the new table. just give us back the old one.


author: Borja Mart?n
body: The problem isn't about knowing how it works.  

The problem is: "how it works", actually. As the title said: "new tables are awful" (vertical alignment, color display, width, combined-cells, HTML-custom, etc..)  

Not even a "slim table" option...


author: Katerina Kovriga {Stiltsoft}
body: We've recenly came across different questions related to Confluence Cloud and its tables, so we decided to create a short video tutorial and upload it to our YouTube channel: <https://youtu.be/EV8uNE7utXk>

Hope it will help new Confluence Cloud users.


author: Gina Palombit
body: I've been having these same issues. I've been frustrated that there are color limitations with the tables. Why not have the option to input our own hex codes for the color? I honestly hate the new editor because of all the bugs with formatting. It's near impossible to make pages look nice visually with all the limitations.


author: Carolynn Kemmerer
body: Totally agree!!! I have been using the old editor for this and the fact that you can't have tables within tables. WHY take OUT functionality????


author: Wolfram Ehnert
body: I newly migrated from server to cloud and completely agree to the above mentioned critics.

What makes me most sad is that plenty of comments have been made more than 2 years ago and apparently nothing has changed.

No good perspectives ... :-(


author: Bryon Fevens
body: How in Zarquons name did something like this ever get past a design review???? This reeks of a Prod mgr needing to justify their existence...."Hmmm...i need to change something to show I'm needed..." and then it cant be backed out as the utterly brain dead change it is, lest said Product Mgr look like a goof... why is atlassian losing market share to others... here is one reason why.   

I've been a long time user and fan of Atlassian products, well over 10 years now, maybe closer to 15 and have always recommended Jira and Confluence as a starting point...i no longer recommended confluence; it seems to want to be a blogging tool only (which is about the only thing I've ++**never**++used it for these past years)..and jira is starting to look like less than stellar recommendation these days vs the competition....market intertia only gets you so far Atlassian


author: Gina Palombit
body: Hey Emmanuel, the only work-around I've found is to either use the Legacy Editor as a template, or use tables to control the size of images. Using tables to control the image sizes is REALLY annoying, but it has worked for me, just not the prettiest thing.


author: markbearden
body: When will Confluence cloud add support for tables, which all other document platforms in the entire universe support? (Oh, you say they "do support tables"? See my final paragraph here.)

It seems to do no good to tell Atlassian how HORRIBLE their UI is; I have never seen any signs of improvement or even feedback. But it feels good to do something, so here I am venting as well.

Wondering how we got here. I think that Atlassian once had some smart developers and designer; got a big market share as a result; and then those smart people obviously left and were replace by really, really, really bad designers who not only committed crimes against product management by destroying an older more functional product, but can't seem to "hear" hundreds or thousands of customers screaming "Please put back what worked".

See, this is mere venting of huge ongoing frustration...

Summary: Atlassian/Confluence ELIMINATED tables in their Cloud product. What they have now is not usable, period. So, they should add support for tables!


author: Nick vB
body: It's still shite!  
I just want to copy a chunk of cells and paste them over a different chunk (same size area). Why is this so fkn hard?! I have to type out every cell again as my table is a 5 column alphabetical list. SMH!


author: Jaco van Tonder
body: I also agree - worst experience in a long time - wasting my time!


author: Speijer_ Peter
body: Hello from Benschop, NL. Table design is not much more then a bug. Go back to the drawing board. Start again. Have a look at InDesign. Even Word doing much better.


author: Kristoffer Bundgaard
body: Greetings from rainy Denmark.

I completely agree with the grievances.

Tables and columns are so much worse. And a lot of other stuff.

For tables, if there could just be an "Advanced" options, where one could get the old functionality. But no-no, we just dumb down....

Anyone has links to Suggestions / Feature Requests [@atlassian](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/62094)?

Br, Kristoffer


author: iaswtw
body: Who are these product managers, what are they basing their decision on and who is paying them? If aliens arrive, we will show Atlassian to them (among others) for the incompetence of our species. I don't have words on how to express what I feel without descending into profanity.


author: Fiona Pragg
body: 3+ years later and the tables are still dreadful. Manky controls and cannot nest anything.


author: Sergii Kozak
body: Tables in Confluence is just highly unusable rubbish. Well, not only just tables, I have to admit that for years of experience of using Confluence I got mainly that type of feeling: "what a rubbish". And by the way, same feedback for Jira. Apparently Atlassian got tons of customers/users who are totally fine to pay for that kind of quality products.


author: Gregory Muir
body: Man, I'm going through user acceptance trials after a BEAST of a time getting the broken migration tool to work and these tables are miserable. That they haven't changed a bit since this topic was first opened is absolutely criminal. Absolutely garbage interface and a total downgrade from Server.


author: Jonathan McGuire
body: The UI/UX needs to be discoverable and not require videos and training. In every other App I've been able to create and modify tables I've never had the issues I have in Confluence now.


Tags: cloud

confluence-cloud

table