Add Short Descriptions

Use the Excerpt Macro in Confluence to mark a portion of content on a page for reuse. This feature is best for marking short descriptions. The short description is a paragraph describing what a page is about and is meant to help users understand quickly if the content is helpful to them.

A short description in an Excerpt Macro can be placed anywhere on a page; often as the first paragraph. The Excerpt Macro can only be used once on each Confluence page. As the introduction to the concept, the excerpt is like the greeting at the beginning of the conversation; it sets the tone.

Find out how to add reusable content to the Excerpt Macro in Confluence.

Write Once, Use Everywhere

Ideally, every documentation page should have an excerpt. There are many uses for the short description in the excerpt, like including it on other pages in the documentation or providing it to search engines to help users find solutions. Some macros like the Children Display macro can even display the excerpt as preview text within the list of child pages. What a great way of previewing the content before you even open the page!