New editor linking to Anchor

[Darron Smith]

I decided to try out the new confluence page editor and one of the first things I wanted to do was insert an anchor for other pages to reference.

This Anchor is no longer an available macro, but it's not deprecated according to documentation and nothing in the existing Anchor docs looks designed for the new editor.

What am I missing?

[Matthias · Accepted solution]

This question is not answered.

The correct answer is: They will not bring this macro back and they have no solution to this.

Please vote here: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-69198

[Klaus Leiter]

Bring the anchor back !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Liz Middleton]

Bring the anchor back!! The suggested solution of using one of the smaller headings does not work.  I tried to put it into a table and that also did not work.  This is really frustrating.

[stanislav.ploschansky@esystems.fi]

Why they removed? Need it as well and was using very often!

[Bo Korrel · Accepted solution]

Hi guys, I am not sure if anybody already mentioned this, but I found a workaround:

Make sure that the text you want to link to is a heading and temporary publish your confluence page, then hover over the heading until you see the 'chain' symbol and click on 'copy link to header',  go back to the edit mode of your page and use this link just like any other link. 

I hope this might help!

[Ron MacCracken]

This worked for me. I don't know if it is relative or not; for example, if I move the page somewhere else, will the anchor link to the old location, or the heading within the page? But for now, it is a workaround.

[Robert Bouthillier]

I need links to files located on the page and often showed a file AS A LINK.  If I could hover over a file at the bottom and grab a link, that would work, but filenames are truncated, so once they are dragged onto a page, the full filename is no longer available.

Dropping Anchors reduces Confluence functionality to match that of Microsoft Sharepoint.  This is clearly making it harder to justify using Confluence over the in-house standard.

[Peter]

I'd just add that this is pretty fragile, any change to the text of the header appears to break links.

[Stacia Martin]

This was very helpful, thanks Bo!

[Brooke]

Please vote here if you are impacted so maybe the fix can be expedited! With only 12 people voting for the issue so far, I'm sure that's not helping matters. CONFCLOUD-66773

[alfred]

Voted! Thanks for this, Brooke! The vote count is now... 16. Let's move this up, people!

[Darron Smith]

They closed that one (October 2019 - "we currently have no plans in the near term to bring back the Anchor Macro in its original state.") and now we have this:

CONFCLOUD-69198 

You'll find a few tickets out there in this space.

Vote them all up!

[Lucas Stannis]

So, do we have anchors back? This is so frustrating :(

[Avinoam]

Hi all,

Apologies for the frustration this has created. The anchoring capability will be coming back within the coming weeks as the ability to link/anchor directly to headers as a first step, followed by the ability to anchor to additional areas in a page.

[Andrew Hunt]

Is there an update on the timeline for this core feature (areas in a page)?

[mike @ mindbridge]

The 'coming weeks' have passed.  I think it's time for an update on the situation.  Tnx.  

[Ueslei Rech Valentini]

still waiting....

[mike @ mindbridge]

Just spit-balling a POSSIBLE WORKAROUND:

Create a new page for any/everything you want to link to in your document.  So page 1 (or 0 depending on your mind set) headers linking to stuff.  Pages: 2 (or 1)-... are all your sections each with links to additional pages containing subsections, subsubsections, etc.  Each page should have two buttons, one to link to their parent page and one to link to page 1 (or 0)(aka 'root').  Page 1 (or 0)(aka 'root') should also have a tree diagram of the document structure so the user can quickly see the document structure and now I think of it page 1 (or 0)(aka 'root') should have headers, subheaders, subsubheaders, etc. linking to the appropriate page in the doc.  Just throwing this out there and if you think it's a reasonable approach feel free to propose any changes and please reconsider your life choices in UI/UX.

Yeah, I had a few minutes free waiting for a process to complete.  Come on ATLASSIAN TEAM, give us some hope.

[Matthew Wong]

waiting

[Veve]

still waiting

[Anh Pham]

Still waiting...

Bring it back please, it's very helpful!

[Josef Etz]

waiting

[Klaus Leiter]

waiting, waiting.......... :-(

[Daniel]

It's 2020, can we please get this simple feature? It is a requirement for writing good documentation articles.

This is getting frustrating!

[Klaus Leiter]

We are a customers and pay for real necessary features which have been canceled somewhere in the dark background  Atlassian programming office......

It is more than irritating, that nobody from Atlassian gives a statement to this and many more drawbacks of this famous new editor - best decision for the moment would be withdraw the new editor !!!!!

[Sue Hannan]

Agree, I would like to see Anchors in the new editor!

[Fritz Stelluto]

LOL why is the question marked as resolved - it isn't.

[Juan Felipe Cardona]

Good question! I was wondering about that as well!

[mike @ mindbridge]

Possibly because there was an Atlassian response to the question (see above)?  I took a stab at getting attention to this.  Maybe start a new question?

[Lisa Brown]

Is there any way to switch back to the old editor? I don't see one.

I too am looking for a way to create an anchor in the new editor :(

[Eshwar Palem]

You should have given a proper ETA for this because this is getting beyond worst now.

[Avinoam]

Hi all, please have a look at https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-articles/Fresh-full-width-and-colorful-new-features/ba-p/1191204

[David Gard]

This is 10 weeks old and it says "we're rolling this out gradually over the next couple of weeks, so if you don't see it yet - hold tight, you will soon!"

Still nothing.

[Matthias]

That one was closed with "Won't fix" which is ridiculous. Here is another one: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-69198

[Charlotte Banfield]

+1 for needing this feature... I'm building up a glossary and really could do with being able to insert text anchors. Eagerly awaiting the (re)appearance of this feature - otherwise absolutely loving the new editor!

[Elsa Saks]

i have exactly the same question. been reading the documentation but can't see 'link advanced' options and 'anchor macro' anywhere.

what's the solution for this? i'd like get help.

[Darron Smith]

OK, never mind...

The anchor macro is temporarily unavailable,

[Stabilitron]

Really waiting for it!!!!  

[anton.qiu]

2020. No Anchor.

[anton.qiu]

A workaround, or that's what Atlassian wants us to do:

• Create a TOC, set permissions and publish your page, visible to you only
• Copy items in the TOC as anchor links.

[steven.burks]

Seriously? No anchor functionality, still?

I have no idea how to revert to the old editor. Suggestions?

How do I enter markup mode in the new editor?

[mike @ mindbridge]

I posted a new version of this question.  If you read this maybe pile on to that question while it is still 'active'.

[Deleted user]

Could we get an answer here please? 

[Bhakti Paranjpe]

Bring the old editor back please ! This is no way better !

Image placement is also so difficult.

Sections - so rigid

Table - difficult ! 

[Lisa Fazenbaker]

So true and so annoying!

[Avinoam]

Hi all,

I know it's been a long wait but we're ironing out some final kinks and you should have link-able headers available natively in the new editor within the next 2 weeks.

Thanks for upvoting this and we're looking forward to releasing this very shortly.

Avinoam

[mike @ mindbridge]

We don't have anchors yet.  So I really think there should be a statement from you.  If it were me running your show a statement would go out clarifying the priority of the feature and the challenges it's presented to the dev team(eg. new framework facilitating 'x' means that such linking is very difficult/not required).  Right now the silence is a statement saying 'Screw you all, got other stuff we care about'.  That will translate from a statement about a functionality to a commentary on the company.

A statement at this point will: a) show good will and b) be a good growth experience for a junior manager.

[Steve Hermes]

Come on Guys !  You said "A few weeks" in June.

What is the update ? 

[Ralph Kohler]

Very frustrating :(

[Jan Williams]

Since anchors have been unceremoniously dumped, is there any suggested alternative for providing similar functionality?

[Ryan Mueller]

Come on Atlassian, it's little stuff like this that makes it hard to sell this platform to coworkers.

[Jan Williams]

I couldn't agree more. I am experiencing that right now. Trying to get a team of over 20 to use Confluence and facing a barrage of complaints!

[Lucas Stannis]

Yeah... It's so good but it falls flat on the most basic stuff. 

[Brooke]

@Ryan Mueller exactly. I am running a committee on improving collaboration in our organization using Confluence, and unfortunately, a lot of the very things I have been encouraging people to try and pitching as solutions to their challenges are now broken in the new editor (anchors, centering photos in tables, inserting documents as clickable links to download something like a PDF, etc.).

I love Atlassian, but the new editor challenges have really set us back. I hope we get a fix for this soon, as without the anchor macro functionality, we will have to totally rethink what we were working on. Getting everyone to reference instead of recreate content requires the anchor macro! And btw the manual workaround that appears here doesn't work. 

Is there an updated time frame for a fix @Avinoam

[Juan Felipe Cardona]

Same situation here... good stuff shouldn't be removed from the product!

[mike @ mindbridge]

Ahhh ... Robert Bouthillier's answer clarifies precisely what will happen.  Atlassian has no incentive to bring Anchors back.  To summarize:

a)  Atlassian's competition does not have Anchors so their users don't know about the feature

b) Atlassian will put their efforts in to having the same features as their competitors so they can lure the competition's users to their product with 'the same user experience'.

c) unless the competition has Anchors, Atlassian never will.

So maybe we should be lobbying the competition ... and going with them if they include Anchors :-D

[Klaus Leiter]

As far as I know Sharepoint is free within the MS Office 365 suite - so why do we pay really a lot of money for confluence -licence ????

I really do not want to be sarcastic - but the Atlassian confluence business model is perfect - frustrated customers pay for all features you can get for free from the competition and further more they pay for removing all the other features which have been former Atlassian usps....... 

[Robert Bouthillier]

Omitting Anchors was a huge miss.    If our team code this option for our sharepoint installation we will just shift to Sharepoint - which also does not natively offer Anchors.    But Sharepoint never had them whereas this was a key differentiator for Confluence.

[Klaus Leiter]

Dear Alltassian team!

Please restore the most practical features of the old editor !!

1. anchor

2. insert thumbnails of attachment links

3. convert thumbnails to ordinary text-links

4. and so on......

[Robert Bouthillier]

Confluence is fast approaching the minimal functionality of Microsoft Sharepoint - which is not very useful. 

[Katrini Alano Martinkoski]

Boa tarde,

Utilizamos muito as âncoras em nossas documentações, gostaria que esta opção retornasse o quanto antes. 

[Ueslei Rech Valentini]

Nós também... estamos aguardando.

[Avinoam]

Hi all! anchors will soon be available natively in the new editor as the ability to link anchor to headings will be made available in the coming weeks.

[Nathan Vasquez]

May seem small but really need these back. 

[alfred]

Came here to find out why I can't find the anchor macro despite the documentation stating so. Is there any workaround while we wait for this to be available in the new editor, @Avinoam?