Confluence page layout introduction

In the previous article we talked about general options available during article edition in Confluence. Now we focus on layout configuration. In Confluence any page is created from blocks named sections. We can manage sections from the main menu under the position Page layout. Good understanding of sections will allow you to create more sophisticated pages on every occasions.

Page section management

We can easily add sections into page using button + Add section. This will allow us to add simple block of content into page.

We can play with sections using button Move up or Move down. Both this actions move cursor position into upper or lower section. This is also possible by clicking your mouse cursor into the section that you are interested in it.

As you can imagine Remove section button removes section from the place where you had active mouse cursor places.

Column section types

In confluence we have six predefined column section types that allow us to create different page layouts according to our needs.

One column section

We have one column layout that expands on full width of the page. This type of section we used up to now.

Two column section

When you click on any section and select an option Two column section from the menu then selected section will change into two column section. Each column takes fifty percent of the available page width.

Two column section with left side-bar

This column section is specific. We can use this type of layout when we want to move navigation menu or some notes on the left column and any related content on the right column. The proportion of the sections is one to two so we have:

• left section is wide at 33% page width
• right section is wide at 66% page width

Two column section with right side-bar

This column section type is a mirror image of the previous one. We have sections organized in such a way that:

• left section is wide at 66% page width
• right section is wide at 33% page width

Three column section

We sometimes want to have a layout with three equal width columns. This is exactly the section type layout that we can use to organize content for any kind of comparisions. We can group some contents according to the objectives or any characteristic points of view.

Three column section with side-bars

This section type layout is a little different from the previous one. We also have three columns but the column in the center takes more than 50% of the page width. This column is for the main content. Left column is often used to put some links so we can put there any navigation menus. In the right column we can type some notes that are correlated with the main content in the center column.

Confluence sections summary

When you play with different section types you need to know about some features that Confluence provides:

1. System remembers your last choices and when you click Add section than you will get the last selected type of section. So when your last choice was Three column section with side-bars than you will add this type of section to the page layout.
2. You cannot create nested sections for example if you want to create two column section in the right column of two column section with right side-bar than this operation is not possible.
3. You can create as many sections as you want to group your content into interesting blocks.

This is all about Confluence page layout. In the next article we will talk about more advanced content options like macros.