For additional examples, please see the column macro page.
Hints and Tips
Don't make sections too long (in terms of screen height) otherwise visitors will have to scroll down several times to read the first column, then scroll to the top to start the next column and so on.
When creating a section for the purpose of splitting text in to columns, try to avoid using more than 3 or 4 columns.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q
Can I apply customised borders and/or backgrounds to the section?
A
Yes. Place the section macro in to a panel macro and use the features of the panel macro to alter borders and background colours, etc.
The section macro is used in conjunction with the column macro for creating a band of horizontally distributed columns. It may be convenient to think of the section macro as the container for a set of column macros, in much the same way as a <tr> tag contains <td> tags.
You can however use the section macro to create several bands of horizontally distributed columns, which give the illusion of vertical distribution.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam fermentum vestibulum est. Cras rhoncus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Sed quis tortor. Donec non ipsum. Mauris condimentum, odio nec porta tristique, ante neque malesuada massa, in dignissim eros velit at tellus. Donec et risus in ligula eleifend consectetuer. Donec volutpat eleifend augue. Integer gravida sodales leo. Nunc vehicula neque ac erat. Vivamus non nisl. Fusce ac magna. Suspendisse euismod libero eget mauris.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam fermentum vestibulum est. Cras rhoncus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Sed quis tortor. Donec non ipsum. Mauris condimentum, odio nec porta tristique, ante neque malesuada massa, in dignissim eros velit at tellus. Donec et risus in ligula eleifend consectetuer. Donec volutpat eleifend augue. Integer gravida sodales leo. Nunc vehicula neque ac erat. Vivamus non nisl. Fusce ac magna. Suspendisse euismod libero eget mauris.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam fermentum vestibulum est. Cras rhoncus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Sed quis tortor. Donec non ipsum. Mauris condimentum, odio nec porta tristique, ante neque malesuada massa, in dignissim eros velit at tellus. Donec et risus in ligula eleifend consectetuer. Donec volutpat eleifend augue. Integer gravida sodales leo. Nunc vehicula neque ac erat. Vivamus non nisl. Fusce ac magna. Suspendisse euismod libero eget mauris.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam fermentum vestibulum est. Cras rhoncus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Sed quis tortor. Donec non ipsum. Mauris condimentum, odio nec porta tristique, ante neque malesuada massa, in dignissim eros velit at tellus. Donec et risus in ligula eleifend consectetuer. Donec volutpat eleifend augue. Integer gravida sodales leo. Nunc vehicula neque ac erat. Vivamus non nisl. Fusce ac magna. Suspendisse euismod libero eget mauris.
Ut ligula. Maecenas consequat. Aliquam placerat. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Nulla convallis. Ut quis tortor. Vestibulum a lectus at diam fermentum vehicula. Mauris sed turpis a nisl ultricies facilisis. Fusce ornare, mi vitae hendrerit eleifend, augue erat cursus nunc, a aliquam elit leo sed est. Donec eget sapien sit amet eros vehicula mollis. In sollicitudin libero in felis. Phasellus metus sem, pulvinar in, porta nec, faucibus in, ipsum. Nam a tellus. Aliquam erat volutpat.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam fermentum vestibulum est. Cras rhoncus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Sed quis tortor. Donec non ipsum. Mauris condimentum, odio nec porta tristique, ante neque malesuada massa, in dignissim eros velit at tellus. Donec et risus in ligula eleifend consectetuer. Donec volutpat eleifend augue. Integer gravida sodales leo. Nunc vehicula neque ac erat. Vivamus non nisl. Fusce ac magna. Suspendisse euismod libero eget mauris.
Ut ligula. Maecenas consequat. Aliquam placerat. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Nulla convallis. Ut quis tortor. Vestibulum a lectus at diam fermentum vehicula. Mauris sed turpis a nisl ultricies facilisis. Fusce ornare, mi vitae hendrerit eleifend, augue erat cursus nunc, a aliquam elit leo sed est. Donec eget sapien sit amet eros vehicula mollis. In sollicitudin libero in felis. Phasellus metus sem, pulvinar in, porta nec, faucibus in, ipsum. Nam a tellus. Aliquam erat volutpat.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam fermentum vestibulum est. Cras rhoncus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Sed quis tortor. Donec non ipsum. Mauris condimentum, odio nec porta tristique, ante neque malesuada massa, in dignissim eros velit at tellus. Donec et risus in ligula eleifend consectetuer. Donec volutpat eleifend augue. Integer gravida sodales leo. Nunc vehicula neque ac erat. Vivamus non nisl. Fusce ac magna. Suspendisse euismod libero eget mauris.
There are numerous problems with PDF and Word export at present. Atlassian will hopefully improve the exports in future versions of Confluence. The "border" parameter only seems to affect the HTML view of sections - when exported to PDF or Word the borders always appear for some reason.
It's not the parameters that are the problem - it's a fundamental flaw in the way macro notation works because there is no difference between an opening tag and a closing tag.
Atlassian need to upgrade their macro renderer (or provide some other mechanism) for clearly stating which is an opening tag and which is a closing tag. Until that happens, any and all attempts to "fudge" or "bodge" the functionality in leads to lots of confusion and unreliability.
Has anyone figured out a good way to override the cellpadding on the table that gets rendered? I like this macro, but I end up using hacks to try to get around this, and they don't always work and it make it harder for others to edit content.
You can use the table macro (from Content Formatting Plugin) and related macros (tr, td) to create completely custom tables with pretty much all standard properties from the equivalent HTML tags.
Added by
You mean this is a vertical partitioning, you might want to make that explicit in your explanation.
Regards, Martin Cleaver
The section macro is used in conjunction with the column macro for creating a band of horizontally distributed columns. It may be convenient to think of the section macro as the container for a set of column macros, in much the same way as a <tr> tag contains <td> tags.
You can however use the section macro to create several bands of horizontally distributed columns, which give the illusion of vertical distribution.
{section} {column}{loremipsum:1}{column} {column}{loremipsum:1}{column} {section} {section} {column}{loremipsum:1}{column} {column}{loremipsum:2}{column} {section} {section} {column}{loremipsum:2}{column} {column}{loremipsum:1}{column} {section}As can be seen below:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam fermentum vestibulum est. Cras rhoncus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Sed quis tortor. Donec non ipsum. Mauris condimentum, odio nec porta tristique, ante neque malesuada massa, in dignissim eros velit at tellus. Donec et risus in ligula eleifend consectetuer. Donec volutpat eleifend augue. Integer gravida sodales leo. Nunc vehicula neque ac erat. Vivamus non nisl. Fusce ac magna. Suspendisse euismod libero eget mauris.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam fermentum vestibulum est. Cras rhoncus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Sed quis tortor. Donec non ipsum. Mauris condimentum, odio nec porta tristique, ante neque malesuada massa, in dignissim eros velit at tellus. Donec et risus in ligula eleifend consectetuer. Donec volutpat eleifend augue. Integer gravida sodales leo. Nunc vehicula neque ac erat. Vivamus non nisl. Fusce ac magna. Suspendisse euismod libero eget mauris.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam fermentum vestibulum est. Cras rhoncus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Sed quis tortor. Donec non ipsum. Mauris condimentum, odio nec porta tristique, ante neque malesuada massa, in dignissim eros velit at tellus. Donec et risus in ligula eleifend consectetuer. Donec volutpat eleifend augue. Integer gravida sodales leo. Nunc vehicula neque ac erat. Vivamus non nisl. Fusce ac magna. Suspendisse euismod libero eget mauris.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam fermentum vestibulum est. Cras rhoncus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Sed quis tortor. Donec non ipsum. Mauris condimentum, odio nec porta tristique, ante neque malesuada massa, in dignissim eros velit at tellus. Donec et risus in ligula eleifend consectetuer. Donec volutpat eleifend augue. Integer gravida sodales leo. Nunc vehicula neque ac erat. Vivamus non nisl. Fusce ac magna. Suspendisse euismod libero eget mauris.
Ut ligula. Maecenas consequat. Aliquam placerat. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Nulla convallis. Ut quis tortor. Vestibulum a lectus at diam fermentum vehicula. Mauris sed turpis a nisl ultricies facilisis. Fusce ornare, mi vitae hendrerit eleifend, augue erat cursus nunc, a aliquam elit leo sed est. Donec eget sapien sit amet eros vehicula mollis. In sollicitudin libero in felis. Phasellus metus sem, pulvinar in, porta nec, faucibus in, ipsum. Nam a tellus. Aliquam erat volutpat.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam fermentum vestibulum est. Cras rhoncus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Sed quis tortor. Donec non ipsum. Mauris condimentum, odio nec porta tristique, ante neque malesuada massa, in dignissim eros velit at tellus. Donec et risus in ligula eleifend consectetuer. Donec volutpat eleifend augue. Integer gravida sodales leo. Nunc vehicula neque ac erat. Vivamus non nisl. Fusce ac magna. Suspendisse euismod libero eget mauris.
Ut ligula. Maecenas consequat. Aliquam placerat. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Nulla convallis. Ut quis tortor. Vestibulum a lectus at diam fermentum vehicula. Mauris sed turpis a nisl ultricies facilisis. Fusce ornare, mi vitae hendrerit eleifend, augue erat cursus nunc, a aliquam elit leo sed est. Donec eget sapien sit amet eros vehicula mollis. In sollicitudin libero in felis. Phasellus metus sem, pulvinar in, porta nec, faucibus in, ipsum. Nam a tellus. Aliquam erat volutpat.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam fermentum vestibulum est. Cras rhoncus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Sed quis tortor. Donec non ipsum. Mauris condimentum, odio nec porta tristique, ante neque malesuada massa, in dignissim eros velit at tellus. Donec et risus in ligula eleifend consectetuer. Donec volutpat eleifend augue. Integer gravida sodales leo. Nunc vehicula neque ac erat. Vivamus non nisl. Fusce ac magna. Suspendisse euismod libero eget mauris.
The macro does not renders good when exporting to pdf, border=false does not work for section
There are numerous problems with PDF and Word export at present. Atlassian will hopefully improve the exports in future versions of Confluence. The "border" parameter only seems to affect the HTML view of sections - when exported to PDF or Word the borders always appear for some reason.
Would it be possible to add another parameter - section ids (like there is for decks/cards)? This way you could have nested sections.
It's not the parameters that are the problem - it's a fundamental flaw in the way macro notation works because there is no difference between an opening tag and a closing tag.
Atlassian need to upgrade their macro renderer (or provide some other mechanism) for clearly stating which is an opening tag and which is a closing tag. Until that happens, any and all attempts to "fudge" or "bodge" the functionality in leads to lots of confusion and unreliability.
Has anyone figured out a good way to override the cellpadding on the table that gets rendered? I like this macro, but I end up using hacks to try to get around this, and they don't always work and it make it harder for others to edit content.
You can use the table macro (from Content Formatting Plugin) and related macros (tr, td) to create completely custom tables with pretty much all standard properties from the equivalent HTML tags.