4 Ways to Add Inline Comments in Confluence

If you asked me what feature I use in Confluence the most, I would go for inline comments. As a content marketing specialist, I usually use inline comments when working on a blog or page with other colleagues. Whether to provide feedback on content, ask a question, or make corrections.

Learning how to add inline comments on Confluence pages helps you speed up a feedback loop and drive teamwork on Confluence pages.
In this article, I’ll show you how to add inline comments in four different ways on Confluence pages and share my thoughts on each of them.

If you prefer to watch the video, I’ve recorded my review of all solutions from this blog post.

Native Inline Comments

First, let’s check the out-of-the-box inline comments functionality in Confluence.

When you highlight text on a page, a chat icon immediately comes up.

After leaving a comment, the author of a page can quickly find the content to pay attention to. A yellow text highlight indicates an inline comment.

When you press it, a related inline comment displays. Your colleagues can reply to it, like it, and mention others to bring into conversation. But the functionality is quite limited actually. You can only edit, delete a comment, or resolve it.

Some companies need more when it comes to inline discussions in Confluence. This is where a daunting procedure of searching and testing apps on the Atlassian Marketplace starts. But, don’t worry, we made it for you.

We will show three different apps that enhance the functionality of inline comments:

• Show Inline Comments in Editor by Actonic
• Inline Comments in the Editor by K15t
• Talk Advanced Inline Comments for Confluence

Let’s start off with Show Inline Comments in Editor by Actonic.

Show Inline Comments in Editor by Actonic

The Actonic inline comments allow working with them in edit mode, which is not the case for the native inline Confluence comments. Add a native inline comment and go to edit mode.

Besides replying to comments, you can add, delete, and resolve them while editing a page.

Also, you can hide a comment sidebar the same way as activating it to avoid distraction.

Talk Advanced Inline Comments for Confluence

The next solution for inline collaboration is Talk Advanced Inline Comments for Confluence . Talk is a different concept of adding inline comments. It’s a fully-fledged comment management tool.

To add a talk on a page, you also need to highlight relevant content on a page and select Talk discussion or Talk suggestion icons on the highlight actions panel.

Change the color of a thread to make it more noticeable.

Add a talk to your favorite comments and have it always at hand.

Set up priority for a comment to emphasize the urgency.

Create private chats with talk visibility restrictions.

Archive comment instead of removing it.

You can use all these features and add new talks in edit mode.

Moreover, Talk allows getting an overview of all inline comments on a page or in a space with Talk Report. Let’s try it out. Go to edit mode, add the keyboard shortcut “{“, and start typing Talk Report.

Then, let’s create the report with only open comments on the page. In the Talk Report settings, go to the Resolution field, select Open, and Insert the report.

The result helps to overview all pending comments on a page and promptly switch to them.

Also, Talk has a suggestion feature that helps you autocorrect text. Believe me, for a content manager it’s a must-have tool. To make use of this feature opt for the Talk Suggestion icon on the highlight actions panel and propose you changes.

Let a page owner decide whether to accept or reject these corrections.

Inline Comments in the Editor by K15t

Let’s move on to the Inline Comments in the Editor by K15t. Inline Comments in the Editor at first side work similar to the inline comments by Actonic. But it takes one action more to show them in edit mode. Find the button to show inline comments in the Confluence editor toolbar. Then, press a comment on the page you want to view.

In edit mode, Inline Comments by K15t allow you to navigate between discussions and resolve them. But you can’t add a new inline comment.

Collaborate in Confluence more effectively

Learning how to add inline comments in Confluence is an essential part of collaboration over a Confluence document. With inline comments you can edit and revise a page or blog post before publishing, ask teammates for clarification or feedback, request more information, and many more.

I hope that my quick overview saved you time and effort for discovering a proper inline commenting tool for more efficient collaboration in Confluence.

How often do you use inline comments in Confluence? What do you use them for? And what features you miss in terms of collaboration in Confluence?