How to Export a Confluence Page (PDF, Word, HTML, Markdown, Subpages)

To export a Confluence page, open the page, click the actions menu (the three dots at the top right), choose Export, and pick Word or PDF. Those are the only two single-page formats. HTML, XML, and CSV exist only as space-level exports and need space admin permission. There is no native Markdown export and no PowerPoint export at all.

That is the short version, and it is also where most people get stuck, because the format list in Confluence does not match the list of things people actually need to do with a page. Below is what each format really contains, how to pull a page tree out in one go, and which export to start from depending on where the content is going next.

What Confluence can export, natively

Atlassian's own Confluence Cloud documentation splits exports into two scopes, and the split matters more than the format names. Single items (a page or a blog post) get two formats. Whole spaces get four, and only a space administrator can run them.

Two things are missing from that list that people search for constantly: Markdown and PowerPoint. Neither is a standard native export. Markdown is covered by several Atlassian Marketplace apps. PowerPoint is not covered by anything inside Confluence, which is worth explaining properly further down because a deprecated macro sends a lot of people the wrong way.

How do I export a Confluence page to PDF?

Open the page, click the three-dot actions menu at the top right, and choose Export, then Export to PDF. Confluence renders the page server-side and downloads a single file. Anyone with view permission on the page can do this, so you do not need to involve an admin for a one-off export.

PDF is the right choice when the layout is the point: a design spec with screenshots, a page with careful table formatting, an architecture diagram that has to land exactly as drawn. It is the wrong choice when something downstream needs to read the structure, because a PDF has no real concept of "this is a level-two heading". It has text positioned on a page, and anything that consumes it has to infer the hierarchy back.

One limitation to know before you promise someone a space export: Atlassian's docs note that space-level PDF exports leave out blog posts and comments. If a decision was recorded in a comment thread rather than in the page body, it will not be in the file.

Can I export a Confluence page to Word?

Yes, and for most downstream uses it is the better export. Same menu: actions, Export, Export to Word. You get a .docx containing the page's headings, paragraphs, bullet lists, and tables as genuine Word structure rather than positioned text.

There is one catch Atlassian states plainly in the documentation: because of how Confluence generates the file, the exported Word document opens reliably in Microsoft Word but is not fully compatible with LibreOffice, OpenOffice, or Google Docs. If your team is not on Microsoft Office, test one page before you export forty. Opening it in Word once and re-saving usually normalizes the file enough for other editors.

How do I export a Confluence page and all its subpages?

You cannot do it from the page-level export menu, which only ever handles the one page you are looking at. Use the space export instead:

1. Go to Space settings for the space that holds the page tree.
2. Open the export option and choose PDF, HTML, or XML.
3. Select the custom export scope rather than the whole space.
4. Check the parent page in the page tree, which selects it and its children, then deselect anything you do not want.
5. Run the export and download the file.

This requires space admin permission, which is the part that stops most people. If you are not an admin, the practical workaround is to export each page to Word individually, which is tedious but needs no permission at all. Atlassian notes that a typical export of around 100 pages should finish within a few minutes, so the constraint here is access, not scale.

Choose PDF for the custom export if the goal is one readable document. Choose HTML if you want the pages as separate files with their attachments alongside. Choose XML only if you are migrating into another Confluence instance, because it is a backup format and is close to useless for reading.

How do I export a Confluence page to Markdown?

Not natively. There is no Export to Markdown button in the standard Confluence Cloud export menu, and this has been an open request in the Atlassian community for years. There are two realistic routes.

The first is a Marketplace app. Several exist specifically for this, and the better ones handle a whole space or a selected page tree while preserving the parent-child structure as folders. Fidelity varies quite a bit between apps, particularly around tables, code blocks, and Confluence-specific macros, so export one complicated page as a test before you buy seats.

The second is to run a space HTML export and convert the files yourself with a tool like Pandoc. This is free and works, and it is the usual choice when the destination is a Git repository or a static site generator. You will spend real time cleaning up Confluence's wrapper markup and rewriting internal links, so it is worth it for a one-time migration and not worth it for a recurring job.

Markdown is usually the target when documentation is heading somewhere machine-readable. If the actual goal is to stop people asking questions that the docs already answer, the exported content is also what you would feed to a support assistant trained on your own documentation, which tends to be a better use of a wiki export than a folder of .md files nobody opens.

Why is there no Export to PowerPoint, and what about the macro?

PowerPoint has never been a Confluence export format. Not in Cloud, not in Data Center, not behind a permission, not for a space admin. If you are looking for it in the export menu, it is not hidden and you have not misconfigured anything.

The confusion comes from the Office PowerPoint macro, which existed for years and did something different: it displayed a .pptx file already attached to a page, inside the page. That is the opposite direction. It put a deck into Confluence; it never got a page out.

That macro is also gone as a working feature. Atlassian deprecated it on 25 March 2025 in a cleanup of infrequently used macros, and began removing instances on 25 September 2025 before reversing the removal. Existing instances still render and their content is still viewable, but you can no longer add new instances or change the configuration of ones you already have. Atlassian's guidance now is to attach the file directly to the page, or paste a OneDrive or SharePoint smart link so it previews inline.

So if what you need is a slide deck built from a Confluence page, the route is two steps: export the page first, then convert that file. Export to Word if you can, because the heading levels and tables survive as structure, and structure is exactly what decides where slides break. Our full walkthrough of the Confluence to PowerPoint route covers which export to start from and what happens to page tables on the way into slides.

Which export should you actually pick?

What every Confluence export loses

No export is lossless, and knowing what disappears saves an unpleasant discovery later.

Macros do not survive as macros. A Jira issues macro, a page properties report, an include macro pulling content from elsewhere: these are rendered at view time. Depending on the format they export as a static snapshot of whatever they displayed at export time, or as nothing at all. Anything dynamic becomes frozen or vanishes.

Comments and inline comments usually go. Space PDF exports exclude comments outright. If your review history and the reasoning behind a decision live in comment threads, they are not coming with the page.

Internal links break. Links between Confluence pages export as absolute URLs pointing back at your Confluence instance. Anyone reading the export without a Confluence license hits a permission wall on every one of them.

Page hierarchy flattens. A single-page export has no idea it had a parent or forty children. Only the space-level exports carry the tree, and PDF flattens it into sequential sections.

The short answer

Word and PDF for a single page, from the three-dot menu, no admin needed. PDF, HTML, XML, or CSV for a space, from Space settings, admin required. Markdown needs a Marketplace app or a Pandoc conversion of an HTML export. PowerPoint does not exist as an export, and the deprecated Office PowerPoint macro was never the feature you were looking for. Pick Word when anything downstream needs to understand the structure, and PDF when the page needs to look exactly as it does on screen.

If the export is heading toward a presentation, you can turn the exported Confluence page into a PowerPoint deck with the headings driving the slide breaks and the page's tables rebuilt as editable charts. Longer written pages follow the same path as turning a report into a presentation, and a .docx export runs through Word to PowerPoint directly.