6 posts tagged with "syntax-highlighting"

Every engineering page in Confluence eventually holds code — a curl from the runbook, the config that fixed the incident, the query the dashboard runs. And every one of those snippets has three natural enemies: the language dropdown in the macro dialog, the paste that loses its indentation, and the reader who cannot copy the thing without dragging across line numbers.

Markdown fences solve all three, because they make the code block text you type instead of an object you configure. ```bash, paste, ``` — done, highlighted, copyable. This guide shows the syntax, the theming behavior, and when fences beat the native macro.

The scenario every engineering team hits: you're documenting an API in Confluence, and the page needs to show a JSON response, an XML config, a YAML deployment manifest, and a SQL query — all on the same page. You paste each one into Confluence's built-in code block macro, publish, and the result is a wall of monochrome text. No syntax colors. No line numbers that work. JSON braces, XML tags, and YAML indentation all blur together. The reader has to copy-paste your snippet into VS Code just to understand it.

The root problem is that Confluence's native code block uses a basic highlighter that wasn't built for the structured data formats modern teams actually work with. JSON, XML, YAML, and SQL each have specific visual conventions — matched braces, nested tags, indentation scopes — that a generic highlighter doesn't handle well.

Modern Code Blocks for Confluence solves this by bringing the Monaco Editor — the same engine that powers VS Code — into Confluence. It accurately highlights 85+ languages including JSON, XML, YAML, SQL, GraphQL, Terraform, Dockerfile, and every mainstream programming language. This guide walks through embedding formatted code and data formats in your Confluence pages.

Confluence's built-in code block macro is limited — it supports roughly 30 languages, has no dark theme, and lacks basic features like copy buttons and collapsible sections. If your team writes documentation with code snippets, you need something better.

This guide shows how to add a VS Code-grade code editor to Confluence with syntax highlighting for 85+ languages, automatic dark/light theme detection, and one-click copy buttons.

Confluence code block themes let you customize how code appears in your documentation. The built-in code macro offers limited theme support, but third-party apps bring dark mode, syntax highlighting, and VS Code-like editing to Confluence.

This guide compares the best Confluence code block apps for syntax highlighting, including Modern Code Blocks, Better Code Macro, and Prism Syntax Highlighter. Learn which one fits your team's needs for Confluence code block themes, language support, and developer experience.

Developers write in Markdown. Confluence doesn't. Every engineering team that moves from GitHub wikis, README files, or Hugo docs to Confluence hits the same wall — the rich text editor feels slow, and there's no way to write in the format they already know.

Several marketplace apps bring Markdown to Confluence, but they take different approaches. Some embed Markdown as macros. Others import Markdown files. A few offer live editing. We built Enhanced Markdown for Confluence to give teams a full WYSIWYG Markdown editor with code highlighting, charts, UML diagrams, and table merging — all inside the Confluence page editor. In this post we compare it against every alternative.