The Edit in Office button is missing after an upgrade
Platform notice: Server and Data Center only. This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Server and Data Center platforms.
Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Problem
After upgrading Confluence, we no longer see the button to edit Microsoft Office documents from within Confluence.
Diagnosis
Environment
Confluence
Cause
Edit in Office Deprecated in Confluence 6.11+
Confluence 6.11 deprecated the Edit in Office macros in favor of the Atlassian Companion App as seen in the 6.11 Release Notes. More information over this functionality can be found here in this documentation: Edit Files
To summarize, the Edit in Office button was removed from the Confluence application and replaced with what is called the Atlassian Companion App. This is why you no longer see the Edit in Office option on pages. Essentially, the in-app functionality was replaced by this standalone app to handle edits/re-saving files back to Confluence.
The Atlassian Companion app enables users to edit Confluence files in their preferred desktop application, then save the file back to Confluence. The download and re-upload of files is managed by the Atlassian Companion app, which needs to be installed on each user's machine (not in the Confluence installation directory) to enable file editing.
Workaround
If you're unable to use the Companion app, you can revert to the old Edit in Office functionality by enabling it as a dark feature. This feature is available in Confluence from version 6.15.6 to 6.15.10, version 7.1.X onward, and Enterprise Release branch 6.13.6 onward. The complete compatibility matrix can be found here.
To revert to Edit in Office functionality (prior to Confluence 7.3):
- Go to
<confluence-url>/admin/darkfeatures.action - Add the enable.legacy.edit.in.office dark feature flag and select Submit.
You need to be logged in as an administrator to do this. Once the dark feature is enabled, the options provided by the Companion app will no longer be available.
To revert to Edit in Office functionality (Confluence 7.3+):
From Confluence 7.3, you don't need to add the dark feature, as you can go to General Configuration > Office Connector and enable the legacy Edit in office functionality directly through the UI.
Resolution
Ultimately we would recommend that you work within your organization to develop a strategy for migrating to the Atlassian Companion App.