3 posts tagged with "WYSIWYG"

Confluence does not have a built-in Markdown editor. The native editor is WYSIWYG only — you can't write in Markdown syntax. But many developers and technical teams prefer Markdown for documentation.

This tutorial shows how to add Markdown editing to Confluence so you can write in Markdown and have it render as standard Confluence content.

Confluence has been the go-to knowledge base and documentation platform for thousands of organizations. At its core, Confluence uses a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor that lets users format content visually -- clicking toolbar buttons for headings, bold text, tables, and macros without writing a single line of markup.

But an increasing number of teams are asking a different question: can we write Confluence content in Markdown instead?

Markdown is a lightweight plain-text formatting syntax originally created by John Gruber in 2004. It has become the default writing format for developers, technical writers, and content teams who work with Git repositories, static site generators, and API documentation. Its appeal is simple: you focus on structure and meaning rather than visual styling, and the formatted output is generated automatically.

Teams choose Markdown over WYSIWYG for several compelling reasons. Developer-heavy teams often already write in Markdown daily -- in README files, pull request descriptions, and documentation repos. Switching to a WYSIWYG editor for Confluence pages feels like a step backward. Markdown content is also plain text, which means it works seamlessly with version control systems like Git, diff tools, and automated pipelines. Finally, Markdown files are portable; the same .md file can be published to GitHub, a static site, or a Confluence page without reformatting.

On the other hand, WYSIWYG editing remains the better choice for non-technical users who prefer visual feedback, drag-and-drop file attachments, and toolbar-driven formatting. Many business teams have no interest in learning syntax rules, no matter how lightweight.

This FAQ addresses the most common questions teams have when evaluating Markdown versus WYSIWYG editing in Confluence, and explains how Enhanced Markdown for Confluence by NGPILOT bridges the gap between both worlds.

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.