What happened to responsive table widths?
Asked by John Tolle:

In the new editor, I cannot find any way to change a table's properties so that it's width is set by its contents. In the "classic" Confluence page editor, there was an option to select Fixed width or Responsive. I could create a wonderfully small table for things like short text values. Now, I am forced to have a giant table no matter what I do.

As a workaround, I can put a table into a set of 3 columns but that's messy.


Answers:
author: John Tolle
body: For everyone on this thread, please vote for the following issue about this problem!

<https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-69352>

(Please do not bother adding +1 messages to the issue as Atlassian ignores those; they only care about Votes on issues.)


author: Michael Fomin
body: I rely on Confluence every day for work. I honestly thought the classic table editor was the best I've ever used.

The new table editor looks sleeker but is just plain cumbersome compared to the power of the old table editor toolbar. It's a real shame.

Please please please bring back responsive-width tables!

PS I am using the old editor, and even when set as responsive width, the table goes to full width after publishing

comments: author: Hassan Ali
body: second to that . i find the new table very annoying


author: ThomasW
body: Really it's just appalling. Confluence was actually quite a good product.

The latest version is just

SO

MUCH

WORSE

in so many aspects.


author: ecoea
body: I think this is when they are over worried about form-factor i.e., put it all for people browsing tables on their small-form devices.

But seriously, you can't do everything using a smartphone. The developer should not forget the importance of the laptop and desktop browser form-factor for working beyond simple tables.


author: Florian Moser
body: I can just strenghen what others here complain about. Not being able to adjust the width of columns feels like MS word in the 80s.

It should be easy to re-activate something that was there and went well, isn't it?


author: Alex Dopp
body: It looks like there's a feature request logged here, currently gathering interest: <https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-67748>

comments: author: John Tolle
body: Thanks, Alex. For everyone else watching this community page, please go add your two cents (vote, watch, and comment) on that actual issue!


author: Bob Sampson
body: Get your co-workers to vote too ;)


author: John Tolle
body: And it turns out that that issue is no longer what I thought it was (the title's been changed, too). So I either need to find the proper issue that matches my question or create one. Either way, I'll post a link here.


author: John Tolle
body: I gave up looking and created a new one:

<https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-69352>

Please vote on this issue!


author: etiennelescot
body: I can't make a simple table with fix column width and horizontal scroll...  
All docs and examples are pointing on old editor.


author: Amanda Scott
body: I am currently having to redo a complicated table I already made in the new editor in the old editor. Since the tables are no longer responsive, all of our users who only have laptops are not able to see the entire table. This is absurd.


author: Peter Kidson
body: Confluence table handling is definitely going the pan. Seems they want to sell to small children now. Apart from not being able to set the width, in years gone by you could have nested tables. And if remember correct;y, you could set the row height too,   
This determined march backwards is as bizarre as it is frustrating.


author: Andrew Culver
body: I found a workaround which may help. Add a new column to the right side of your table. Adjust the size of all the other columns to the size you want. Delete the new column you just added. The rest of the columns should remain the same size, resulting in a narrower table.

comments: author: John Tolle
body: Are you using Cloud? I just tested your workaround and it behaves as it always has: when I delete the newly added column, the remaining columns automatically widen to fill the space - the table always maintains its 100% width.

If you can recreate this in cloud, perhaps we need to dig deeper to see exactly what the difference is between my test and yours. For example, I stick with the Confluence default of a fairly small overall page width (to make things more readable). I tried again with a full-width page with the same results: deleting the last column resulted in the table automatically expanding horizontally to maintain it's 100% width.


author: Andrew Culver
body: Yes, I'm on Cloud.

The workaround isn't perfect. It doesn't let me set the width to any size I want. But I was starting with a table that was wider than the screen, causing left-right scrolling. After the workaround, it brought the table back to match the width of the page.


author: John Tolle
body: Ah, your distinction clarifies. It's not that your workaround allows smaller-than-100%-width-tables, but instead it fixes larger-than-100%-width-tables so that they're back to normal full width without scroll bars... and those scroll bars are another bane of our collective existence, so thank you for this at least!


author: ray.kim
body: The inability to size tables is just REALLY STUPID!!! This NEEDS TO BE FIXED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


author: Kim Landis
body: It shows in the animated gif on the [Confluence Editing Improvements](https://confluence.atlassian.com/confcloud/confluence-editing-improvements-945107733.html#ConfluenceEditingImprovements-Tables) page Tables section that there is a double-ended arrow icon to the right of the table that allows you to change between Wide, Full-Width, and Fixed-Width, but I don't see that icon in my editor. How can I get that icon to show up?

comments: author: Emilio Galasso
body: There are two sets of arrow buttons. One appears at the top of the page and it makes the entire page either full-width or fixed width (narrow and centered). The other appears at the top right of a table, but only if the *page* is set to fixed width.  

If the page is set to fixed-width, then tables have the option to go wide, full, or centered. If the page is set to full-width, tables automatically go to full-width as well with no option to change.  

It's a very strange design choice because you have the option of having your page narrow and centered with tables extending far outside the margins of the rest of the page. Looks weird to me.

The Atlassian team needs to realize that when they change or remove functionality they destroy any consistency their customers have put into their documents. Now you can't indent within tables using the new editor either. I'm not sure what Atlassian has against indentation, because indent functionality was removed and restored not so long ago and it's something I make use of heavily.


author: Kim Landis
body: Thanks for the explanation. You're right, I do have my pages set to full width. I don't get why Atlassian thinks it's better to scroll horizontally in a table than to just wrap the text so it's all in view. GAH!


author: Graeme Akerman
body: The table format in the new editor is hopeless, I have no control over it whether fixed or responsive. I have large tables that need scrolling but i can't adjust the width of the end columns either, all just bunches up.


author: John Johnson
body: Frustrating indeed, but I have a work-around here that I use for my wide tables:

<https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-questions/How-do-I-add-horizontal-scrolling-to-a-table-or-page/qaq-p/1416509#M216663>


author: John Tolle
body: I was afraid that would be the answer. Yes, we can still use the old editor, for now. Since that is going to be replaced by the new one soon, I'm not counting on that as a long term fix.

I also tried the following "workaround" to get a thinner table:

1. Create columns (such as a 3 column layout)
2. Put the table in the middle column

While it looks good in the preview, the width shrinks significantly when publishing the page, so it really smashes the table too tight.

I also tried with a 2 column layout and that seems to suffer the same issue, only less so. It's as if the two columns are squeezed width-wise and then the set of two columns is centered (I stuck some simple text in the other column and it was obvious that the available space for the table in one column and the text in the other diminished greatly upon publishing).

comments: author: philoye
body: We recently released a fix for the shrinking table inside columns. Sorry that you were affected by this.


author: Nicholas Wade
body: Well, I'm an author who has spent several hours, days, weeks etc.. not being able to a) select responsive b) being stuck with column widths that are just plain silly. Who checked this (not so cheap) product out? I've got a long.. long document in Confluence that looks like crap and its taken a mountain of formatting (limitations) to get it looking anywhere reasonable. Sorry does not cut it with me!

BTW(2) if I see one more damn badge I'm gonna scream!


author: Mark Thompson
body: This is also a problem for me, and a clear missing functionality from the new editor. It's a real shame as the new table editor function is nice, but incomplete. Can we please get a fix for this.


author: Grossen Michael
body: Also for us the missing possibility to define the width of tabel coluns in the new editor is a big drawback compared to what was possible before. I'm wondering, who at Atlassian decided to force cloud users on the new editor eventhough many of the prevouosly available features are still missing!


author: Nicholas Wade
body: 'coz it's cheaper....


author: Annika
body: Is there an update for this yet? Or a timeline?


author: Matt Lovett
body: Any update one when we can define a fixed width table???


author: Paul Bowen
body: These tables are causing me no end of problems. Not being able to have responsive tables is unbelievable, it's like going back 10 years in technology - you know Atlassian, people use mobiles and tablets to view pages too!

The biggest issue for me though is when I try and print a page (print to PDF but export to PDF breaks tables too), tables are cropped. This is a huge problem as I share docs with clients via pdf because we can't have hundreds of clients logging into our Confluence.

The old auto column width based on content and page width was so much better.


author: Christian Steinbach
body: I need to strengthen all the arguments said above. The old table editor was kind of genius, simple and powerful. The new one is a pain to use and the not-responsible width is just a step back. Kindly reinvent the wheel here - thanks!


author: Dave Sugrue
body: This is absolutely ridiculous. I've set up Confluence for a client. So, because it is a new subscription, I am being forced to only use the new editor. Client is not impressed at all by the tool.

Confluence Cloud is already missing basic functionality (such as copying a page tree), but now they are forcing us to use an editor that lacks even the most basic functionality???

It actually feels like Atlassian is actively trying to drive customers away. I am at a complete loss trying to understand their thinking.


author: Dan Crough
body: It's been a year [@philoye](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/257955)


author: Davin Studer
body: Unfortunately, that's not possible with the new editor right now. Are you still able to create pages with the old editor? If so I would use that.

comments: author: Nicholas Wade
body: Yeah, but the old editor (assuming we're both on the same page) does not have the same page layouts. The whole package is a nightmare....


Tags: cloud

confluence-cloud