Adding a simple text input box to a page in Confluence
Asked by Thomas Dobrota:

Hi all,

Can you please help me find out how to add a simple text input box to a page that anyone can edit without having to go in Edit Mode. (similar to a tickbox, but using letters instead of ticks)

A simple dropdown would work just as well, if a text input box such as the one described above doesn't exist.

Please let me know if you need further info.

Thanks,

Thomas


Answers:
author: Nicketa
body: <https://docs.atlassian.com/aui/7.8.3/docs/forms.html>

Use html Macro to use this.

comments: author: Casey Maynard
body: It is not clear how I can implement this into my page?


author: Nicketa
body: 1. edit your confluence page.

2. Click on +

3. Other macros \> search for html \[note: if you're not able to see html macro, ask your admin to enable it.

4. Choose any code from <https://docs.atlassian.com/aui/7.8.3/docs/forms.html> and ready to go.


author: Casey Maynard
body: Thanks. I have the custom html activated, but implementation still seems to elude me. As an example, if I enter the 'text inputs' code into the Head and/or Body section, it creates a text line at the top of my page, and does not seem to do anything for the 'end' section. I need to be able to define where on the page these text input fields appear.


author: RianA
body: Unfortunately, It's not possible to do that in Confluence. If you would like to edit the content I'm afraid you need to go in Edit mode. If you would like some [template](https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Adding+a+Template) with text field variable, it's available in Confluence. Also there's a third party commercial plugin that might be favorable to you which is [Scaffolding Plugin](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/net.customware.confluence.plugin.scaffolding). However, I am not sure whether it's similar with your requirement. Hope it helps!


author: Thomas Dobrota
body: If only I can remember why I needed this in the first place, that would have been perfect. :/ 8 years is a long time.

comments: author: Casey Maynard
body: Sigh ... that is the reality of Atlassian. Very little interaction from the community (especially Atlassian personnel) on resolving simple functionality line 'text' lines.


author: Thomas Dobrota
body: Thank you all for the feedback!


author: Patrick May
body: here's what we did. not sure it will get your intent though. we have a complex rollup page with many things that we didn't want every engineer to be encouraged to edit in. however, we didn't want to take away edit rights because they all have their own pages to handle. this wasn't about trusting users, but really about have a fragile formatted page we didn't want people to have ease of access to edit formatting. so what we tried was creating a subpage with only text and no formatting. we then added the page using the excerpt macro on the the parent page where we wanted the text to lie. THEN we added a line of text that said "click here to add comment" with a URL to the subpage and the catch is that the URL open the subpage in edit mode.

the final stage of affairs is that the user will visit the page, click the URL to go to the subpage to edit text. the macro will display all the text when the user clicks save at the bottom. the user is not likely to edit the formatting of the master page.

comments: author: Casey Maynard
body: Are they any recent options for adding a multi-line text box to a confluence page that does not require a user to have 'edit' permissions?

Note: there ARE several add-ons that allow users to 'edit' content on the page without edit permissions (drop-down boxes, checkboxes), so why not allow a text box entry, (but the text edits need to be recorded in the page activity)


author: Luca Pizzagalli
body: Any answers or updates on this?


author: Casey Maynard
body: Unfortunately no. Atlassian is unlikely to implement basic functionality such as text boxes. I have never seen them respond to forum posts, and their backlog is impressively long. And give the fact that there are Add-ons (which cost $$) they are even more unlikely to implement a solution in the base functionality. So until there is some competition for these basic features, we are locked into suffering with insufficient basic functionality.


author: Bob Bender
body: You can add a SINGLE CELL Table, then format accordingly.

It's a work around for sure, but it worked for my purposes.

comments: author: royer franck
body: What do you mean? please explain


author: Kevin Pearce
body: This is an old thread but I thought I would update since I had the same issue and just stumbled upon the solution.

Running Confluence 5.5 and creating a custom template I can insert a variable. Once I give the variable a name, I can change the type to multi line text and it lets me choose the size.


author: Selcuk Savas
body: Hi Thomas,

It is Confluence property.

You open a blog post (which is a page actually) or a page and add comment using +Add menu.

Please see below.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,

Selcuk

![](../../upfiles/comment.png)

comments: author: Thomas Dobrota
body: Hi Selcuk,

Thanks, but it doesn't really actually do what I am trying to achieve. Do you know how I can get Atlassian to provide an official answer. I've tried poking them but no response.

Thanks,

Thomas


author: Thomas Dobrota
body: Hi Atlassian,

If any official staff members sees this please provide an official answer(e.g. "such functionality does not exist").

I will not close this until I get a response from an official member of you customer service team.

Thanks,

Thomas


author: Selcuk Savas
body: I don't think it is possible.

You can use the comment option to make comment on a topic or text.

Cheers,

Selcuk

comments: author: Thomas Dobrota
body: @Selcuk How does the comment option work? Is it in edit mode or view mode? Is it "insert" object? Or is it a special code? (example {special code})


author: Thomas Dobrota
body: Also, I had no idea if I am using "download" or ondemand".


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