How do I paste data into a table using Confluence 5.7?

Question

I have a pile of tabular data I need to paste onto a Confluence web page. The usual mechanisms are NOT working properly for me.

What "usual mechanisms?"

1. Copy the data to Excel then copy / paste into Confluence.

2. Format the content using wiki markup, meaning:

   • double bars before / between / after the column header cells
   • single bars before / between / after the data cells

and paste that into the Wiki page.

The first option gets me a table, but it doesn't show the grid lines, and the sorting doesn't work.

The second option plops the markup into the page, but does nothing with it. If I go to the first line and hit <return> after the last bar, it turns the line into a table with a header row (since it has double-bars). If I go to the second line and hit <return> after the last bar, it creates A SEPARATE TABLE with the data in it. I can go to the first table (created from the header row), tell Confluence to add a row below, then copy the data from the second table into that second row and it will do it. But I will need to repeat that sequence for EACH ROW OF DATA.

I've just lived with in this in the past. When there's only a few rows, no biggie. But I'm trying to create a table with 200+ rows. That sequence just isn't acceptable for this amount of work.

Suggestions on how to get this working?

Answer 1

I went a circuitous route to accomplish this:

• Made a text file with my information and tab-separated the fields
• Pasted this data in to Google Sheets
• Copied the cells from Google Sheets
• Pasted them in to the a pre-made table in Confluence

It was still faster than writing each field manually.

Answer 2

To insert large tables with the second option you need to first hit Ctrl + Shift + D and then paste in the table in wiki markup form.

Wrap the table in any macros required if you know the macro name and parms. This can be a serious PITA to do after a table has been created in the Confluence 5 GUI.

Click Insert and the resulting table will be converted to the new wiki format into the page.