Editing Attachments on a Confluence page

[Juan Du Toit]

Hi,

I have 3 questions related to attachments on a Confluence pages

On a page on Confluence cloud, I uploaded a PDF document

1) How do I get the document to show a link and not a tile?

2) When I edit the document using the Atlassian companion (which was first downloaded for server) it works fine, but when I go back to the document on the page, I can't seem to click on it.  I need to go into the attachments sections and view it from there.  Is this a bug?

3) Is it possible to view the version of an attachment without downloading it? At the moment I am going into the attachment section to see the version, but if I want to compare versions, then I need to download it, is this the correct behaviour?

[Diego · Accepted solution]

Hello Juan! We have three distinct things at hand.

The first is attachment linking, correct? With this in mind, I will try to address this first.
You can surely insert attachments as links by following this workaround:

1. Login to Confluence
2. Go to the page where the attachment is located
3. Click the paperclip at the top right to access the attachments
4. Right click the desired attachment
5. Select to "Copy Link Location" (on Firefox)
6. Go to the page again
7. Enter edit mode
8. Use the CTRL+K (for Windows) / CMD+K (for macOS) shortcut
9. Paste the link you copied earlier
10. Add a display text to it, if so desired
11. Publish page

After doing so, your file should be presented as a link and users can download it when they click the link.

Now let us try and address your questions about Confluence versioning. Confluence does create attachment versions. You can check more bout it here:

• Manage files - Upload a new version of an attached file

However, there is no native tool that can can perform the comparison between attachment versions. The closes to version control in Confluence is GoEdit Revision Control:

• Confluence Cloud - GoEdit

It is possible to see an attachment version, yes. Here is how you can proceed to do so:

1. Login to Confluence
2. Go to the page where the attachment is located
3. Click the paperclip at the top right to access the attachments
4. Click the arrow pointing at the Attachment name
5. This should show previous versions and also the current one

This page looks like this:

Hope this helps you out Jua! Let us know your thoughts. Looking forward to your reply.

[Grace_Rago]

Hello Diego,

Thanks for the workaround and detailed information. 

I just notice that when attachment is shown as link, we can only download it and not able to edit directly.  We still need to go to the Attachments page and then click Edit file to make changes.  

Is there a way we can edit it directly through the shown link?

[Diego]

Hello there. Thanks for keeping the thread moving, Grace!

Currently, we can not edit files directly in Confluence.

We need to use the Atlassian Companion App to edit files that are attached in Confluence.

You can check more information about this here:

• Confluence Cloud - Edit Files
  

Let us hear from you.

[Juan Du Toit]

Hi Diego,

Are you saying that we can now edit the files from a link without downloading it first or going to the attachment section of the page?

[Diego]

Hello there, Juan!

No, I am not saying that. What we currently have to do is use the Atlassian Companion App. With the Companion App, we can get files from the instance, edit them in our machine and then re-upload them to Confluence. 

For further information on this, you can take a look here: 

• Confluence Cloud - Edit Files

Let us hear from you, Juan. Looking forward to your reply!