Whenever you create a new space, the first page of that space always has the same content. As a Confluence Administrator, you can change this default space content to contain any other content you like.

To change the default content of a global space, perform the following steps:

To change the default content of a personal space, perform the following steps:

Confluence allows you to add some custom HTML to every page in Confluence. A very common use case for this is to add a Google Analytics tracker to Confluence.

There are three places where you can insert HTML, as shown in the next screenshot:

Before adding any custom HTML to your Confluence pages, make sure it is valid. Adding incomplete or broken HTML can result in not being able to use Confluence anymore.

To insert custom HTML, perform the following steps:

Confluence gives us the possibility to add custom CSS files to Confluence and potentially change the complete look and feel. In order to apply CSS, you need adequate knowledge on working with and writing in CSS. Beginner tutorials are widely available on the Internet, for instance at W3Schools (http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp).

Custom CSSs can be added on the global and space levels, although the last one is disabled by default and should be turned on by a Confluence Administrator. Spaces with their own custom CSSs will ignore the global custom CSS.

To enable custom stylesheets for spaces, perform the following steps:

To add a custom style sheet to Confluence, perform the following steps:

Use the following example to get an understanding of what is possible with custom stylesheets:

body:not(.dashboard) #main { padding: 40px 80px 0px; font-size:120%; }
#title-heading { font-size: 200%; }

#breadcrumbs { display:none; }

.content-navigation {width: 300px; height: 30px; }
.content-navigation ul { display:none; }
.content-navigation:hover ul { display:block; }

The first block will change the padding of the main element so that there is more whitespace on the left and right of the content. It also resizes the text to 120 percent and the page title to 200 percent of its original size.

The second statement will remove the breadcrumbs above the page title.

The last section of the stylesheet will hide the page tools (Edit, Share, and Tools) unless someone hovers the location with their mouse.

This is how your page will look like with this custom stylesheet installed:

As the preceding example showed, changing the CSS is a powerful way to alter the appearance of your Confluence. It does require some basic CSS and HTML skills though.

There is a tutorial available online to get you started with changing the CSS at https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Basic+Styling+Tutorial.

Confluence is built on top of the open source library SiteMesh, a web page layout system. To further change the look and feel of Confluence, you can modify these decorator files. If you want to change the decorator files, you should familiarize yourself with Velocity. The user guide is available online at http://velocity.apache.org/engine/releases/velocity-1.4/user-guide.html.

The decorator files in Confluence are grouped in the following sections:

To edit a decorator file, perform the following steps:

Use View Default to view the default decorator file. If something goes wrong, you can use Reset Default to return to the original layout.

While editing the decorator files, there are a couple of Velocity macros that you can use to insert items like breadcrumbs or menus in your layout. The following are some of these macros; more are available online at https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Working+With+Decorator+Macros.

These macros work reliably only when you're editing the main decorator. They may not work in other decorators; they will definitely not work in the normal Confluence editor.