Adding
Columns & Sections
If you either
want or, need, to add some columns to your pages in Confluence, there's good
news: it's easy to do!
The control for
adding sections to a page is this one:
It's called the
Page Layout button and, when you click on it, you get a toolbar that offers you
all of the options you're likely to need.
Clicking the
left-most selection, 'Add section', does exactly that. It adds a section to
your page that you can populate with text, images, tables and all manner of
other content. Mind you, if you have already put content onto your page, that
will become the first section. You can, dynamically, add more content to the
section so that the section stretches vertically. However, there is no resizing
capability for the horizontal dimension.
When you add a
section, it will extend the entire width of the page. Only when you choose any
of the columnar options to the right of the toolbar will you see columns that
have varying widths that are less than that of the page.
Choosing the
second option, 'Remove section' comes with a caveat: if you already have
created a section around content that you have put onto the page, choosing to
remove the section will also wipe out your content!! If you do this and you
need to get your content back, use CTRL-z (Undo) immediately. Doing so will
retrieve your content. However, you will still have everything in a section. If
you are still determined to remove the section, highlight the content within
the section, choose 'Copy' from the formatting toolbar–or, use CTRL-c from the
keyboard. Then, click 'Remove section' and paste your content back onto the
page sans section (you can use CTRL-v to paste, too).
'Move up' and
'Move down' perform exactly as advertised: if you have a section that you have
added to a page, these two choices will move the section up or down on the page
so that you can place it in the precise location you determine it should go.
The next series
of icons may, or may not, seem a bit obtuse. Nonetheless, they are there to
help you put your content into columns. All of these options work from the
premise that you have already added a section to the page. The first represents
the default case: a single column section. Where you might make use of this is
when you have formatted a section on your page with columns and have determined
that your content would be better served in one section/column on the page.
The second
selection is for a two-column section. By clicking that, you will see two
individual sections appear on the page.
Here again,
realize that if you already have content on the page, choosing this option will
put all of your existing content into one of the columns.
The third option
is 'Two column section with a left side-bar'. This forms a wider section to the
right. Similarly, the next button to the right is the 'Two column section with
a right side-bar' and yields a wider section to the left.
The next icon to
the right is for a three-column section. Each column with be identically sized.
The last button
is 'Three column section with side-bars'. Here, the center column is the
widest.
The best
suggestion we can offer is that you try them, if you're either curious or, of
the mind to use what they can provide by way of page formatting. See which of
the options works best for your purposes and aesthetics. Just remember: you can
always undo....!