Documentation

The first time: Allow access

Before your first table is added, Atlassian asks you to allow the app to access Confluence on your behalf, with an Allow access button. Click it and confirm. If the panel starts again afterwards, choose your file again and click Insert the table.

This is needed because the app reads and edits the page with your own Confluence permissions, never more: it can only add a table to a page you are already allowed to edit. Each person is asked once. Atlassian may ask again if a later version of the app needs new permissions.

If you do not allow access, nothing is written to the page. The request appears again the next time you try, so you can allow it later.

Getting started

Open the Confluence page where the table should go. Under the page title, click Quick Table Import. Choose an Excel (.xlsx) or CSV file. The panel shows a preview of the table exactly as it will be inserted. Click Insert the table: the table is added at the bottom of the page, and the panel tells you so. Reload the page to see it.

The result is an ordinary Confluence table. You can edit it by hand, Confluence search finds its content, and it stays in the page even if the app is removed.

What arrives in the table

Numbers keep the look they had in Excel: the same number of decimals, the thousands separator if the file used one, the currency symbol on the same side, the percent sign. Only the separators follow one number format chosen for the whole table: by default the one of your Confluence language, and you can change it in the preview (1 234,56, 1,234.56, 1.234,56 or 1’234.56). Dates keep the pattern set in the file, and month names are written in your language. Codes such as 007 or a postal code keep their leading zeros. TRUE and FALSE values are written in your language.

Merged cells stay merged, across rows and across columns. The first row of the file becomes the header row of the table. Text on several lines stays on several lines. Bold, italic, underline and strikethrough are kept, for a whole cell or for a single word. A link keeps its label followed by its address in parentheses.

A CSV file has no formatting. The app detects its separator (semicolon, comma, tab or vertical bar) and its encoding, including the one Excel uses when it saves a CSV on Windows, so accented letters arrive intact. It then decides once, for the whole file, how the numbers are written, and only changes the separators if you chose another number format. When a column could be read two ways, it is left exactly as it is rather than guessed.

Columns are sized to their content, so amounts, dates and headings are never cut in the middle. A table wider than the page scrolls sideways.

What is not kept, and how you know

Before you insert anything, the panel shows a single message listing what cannot be kept as it is. Formulas arrive as their last calculated value, and the table will not recalculate. Images and charts are not imported, because a table cell cannot hold them. Text hidden under a merged cell is not imported. When a workbook has several sheets, the first one is selected by default, you can choose another in the preview, and the message names the sheets that are left out.

Text colours and cell backgrounds are not imported. The preview shows the table without them, so you see it before you click.

Limits

A file can weigh up to 10 MB and hold up to 5,000 rows and 50,000 cells. The panel states these limits before you choose a file, and a larger table is refused with a message saying so: nothing is cut silently. Old Excel files (.xls) are not read: open them in Excel and save them as .xlsx.

The table is always added at the bottom of the page. If someone is editing the page at the same moment, their Update button fails once and they need to refresh the page; nothing they typed is lost. If you are not allowed to edit the page, Confluence refuses and the panel says so.

Subscription

The app runs on the subscription held by your Confluence site. If the subscription stops, the panel says so and no file can be imported. A Confluence administrator can restart it in Settings, then Apps, then Manage apps.

Support

Use the support contact form, or write to contact@webelisys.fr. Include your Confluence site address and, if you can, the file you tried to import.

Open the support page