“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” – Audrey Hepburn

How This Mini-Book Can Help You

Our memory isn’t perfect, especially in tech, juggling multiple stacks and constantly switching contexts. Then, out of nowhere, someone (or several people) asks about something you worked on months ago, and you have to dig deep into the archives of your brain to pull that knowledge back out.

If you can recall, nice! But you will probably stumble over small details that you have already encountered. That’s not efficient for you or your coworkers.

And that’s one of the values that documenting provides: It is easier to invest time knowing that it will be helpful to someone, even if that person is yourself, in a few months.

Based on my experience working with many people and teams, is that when you facilitate the patterns and tools to make documenting less taxing, people will be more willing to cooperate and improve things.

Unless you’ve come across good examples, it’s hard to know how to reach that level of quality, what tools to use to get there, or at least close to good documentation. While examples and templates are available, many people don’t have the time or patience to sift through all the resources.

This mini-book aims to simplify that process by providing examples and explanations in one place instead of leaving you to search through scattered gold nuggets in official docs, service providers, or random Google searches.

I’ll try to be as structured as possible when building from scratch rather than trying to jump into complex topics like Dynamic Documentation—oh yes, it gets better.

How to Use This Mini-Book

First, I recommend avoiding reading this on mobile for the best experience. Second, this mini-book is focused on the Data Center version of Confluence, so there may be differences in menus and integrations compared to other versions. I’ll do my best to include examples for both or at least provide pointers where differences arise.

In regards to the exposition of the content:

Highlighted Words: I’ll use a Tomato color to highlight key concepts or macros so you won’t see hyperlinks everywhere.
Image Examples:
- I like this format, but it might miss some details between clicks.
- You can click on images to view them in full.
Expandable Code: If you see an option to expand the code, it’s an example—feel free to skip it if you don’t need the details.

Chapters Overview

The content will be split into four sections, as the index bar exceeded its length, making it easier to read and navigate:

Chapter 0: About the Author (optional): Read this if you’re doubting your ability to write.
Chapter 1: Basics: Start here if you feel awkward navigating Confluence.
Chapter 2: Page Structure: How to format your pages.
Chapter 3: The Macros Strikes Back: Macros
Chapter 4: A New Hope: Random trivia that might be useful on a date to break the ice.

Chapter 0 (Optional)

Chapter 1