How to link to undefined page

[Michael Mannion]

I apologize in advance for asking such an obvious question, but the workflow for creating page links seems to have changed since the last time I used Confluence, and the relevant documentation does not reflect what I observe when working in the current editor.

I'm editing an existing page, and would like to create a link to a new page that does not yet exist. The Confluence documentation refers to this as an "undefined page". When I attempt to create a link to an undefined page, however, I only seem to have the ability to choose from existing pages.

Per the documentation (for example, here), I should have an "Advanced" option that allows creating a new page. When I type CTRL+K or click the Link button in the editor, however, there is only a list of existing pages, with no Advanced option.

I'm an infrequent Confluence user, but recall in the past that I could create page links, including to new pages, by using square brackets (e.g. "[New Page]"). I just re-read some doc that describes this "autocomplete" behavior. Apparently it's supposed to still work, but when I type square brackets into the page they just result in those literal characters being added, without any special behavior.

My question is:

• Is it still possible to create a link to an undefined page and, if so, how?

I'm using Confluence Cloud, if that matters.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Michael Mannion · Accepted solution]

Per this post, this functionality was removed from the new editor, but the documentation was not updated.

[Shannon S]

Hi Michael,

Thank you for contacting us about this.

As you discovered, they're not yet possible in the new editor, but this is mentioned in our roadmap below:

• Confluence Cloud Editor Roadmap 

This feature is currently in our short-term backlog, and you can track its progress here:

• CONFCLOUD-67129 Link to an undefined page (a page that doesn't exist yet)

There is a workaround listed there, which is:

As this is not a native feature in the new editor for now, we can keep using our undefined links by opening them on a new tab (right-clicking over the link and selecting this option, or CTRL + Right Click / COMMAND + Right Click).

To insert an undefined link on a page with the new editor, create a link with this address:

https://SITE_NAME.atlassian.net/wiki/pages/createpage.action?spaceKey=SPACEKEY 

Let me know if you have any trouble or questions about that.

Regards,

Shannon

[Oli Harvey]

this is absolute madness - the whole point of a wiki is to create a structured document - this is virtually impossible if one has to leave the page being edited do a "create" of the new page - then "move" it to the parent you were on, then go back and edit the parent to link to the child.....nuts.

[Michael Mannion]

@Oli Harvey If you haven't done so already, would you mind please voting for the CONFCLOUD-67129 bug, as cited in @Shannon S reply above?

I'm only on a handful of Confluence/Jira product tickets. While they're pretty active, at least among the user community, the "Vote for this issue" button seems only to be a placebo. Nonetheless, it's easy enough to click. And, to be fair, Atlassian has responded to this particular ticket recently, so perhaps a fix for this regression is near at hand.

Thank you.

[Jason Kottler]

This is horrific. It absolutely abandons the concept that the wiki was born on.

[jreyno_sandia_gov]

I can't believe this feature was removed. Let's all go back to the IBM Selectrix.

[Adam Brooks]

The legacy approach was "[Page Name That Does Not Yet Exist]" to easily create a linked undefined page. It seems that the updated solution is to format as "[Page Name That Doe Not Yet Exist]()".

Hope that helps!