All the email notifications sent from your Zendesk, including ticket notifications and Help Center article notifications, are controlled by email templates. The templates are formatted for both HTML and plain text emails. Both formats are included in each email. The version end-users see depends on the preference settings of their email clients.
You can customize the HTML template to match your branding by making a few simple style changes. You can also edit the information in the text versions of your emails.
Related articles:
Editing the email templates
The look and feel of the emails are controlled by an HTML template and a text template. If you are on Enterprise, you can modify and test email changes in a sandbox before deploying them publicly (see Testing changes in your sandbox).
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Channels > Email.
- Find the Email templates section and modify the templates as needed.
If you need help, see the following topics:
- If you want to start over with the default version of the template, click the Revert to Default link below the template.
- Click Save.
- Show user profile photos
- Add or remove ticket links
- Adding and removing the delimiter email notifications
-
Use Liquid markup
Note: While Liquid markup is supported in the email template and works for ticket notifications, it is not supported for Help Center article notifications. Instead of using Liquid, you might instead follow the steps for using the email template with multiple brands.
Editing the HTML template
You can change the appearance of HTML emails by editing the HTML and CSS in the HTML template.
This section covers the following topics:
Changing the appearance of HTML emails
The HTML template consists of DIV tags and system placeholders.
The placeholders supply most of the content to the email:
-
{{content}}
is required and should not be deleted -
{{delimiter}}
is only required if you are using the email delimiter in notifications -
{{styles}}
and{{attributes}}
are for future use and are sometimes used by the system to inject styles and attributes to support Right-to-Left locales -
{{footer}}
is optional
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Channels > Email.
- Scroll down to Email Templates.
- Make your changes.
If you want to use any of the standard template placeholders, start typing the placeholder name, then choose from the available options that appear.
- Click Save when you're finished.
For example, here's how to change the font color of the footer to teal:
... <div style=" color: #009966; margin: 10px 0 14px 0; padding-top: 10px; border-top: 1px solid #eeeeee;" > {{footer}}{{footer_link}} </div> ...
The font color is set to teal's hexadecimal value with the following style declaration:
color: #009966;
a:hover {color:#FF00FF;}
. Unfortunately, CSS pseudo classes are not supported in inline CSS, and major email clients like Gmail strip out any CSS that is not inline.To add an image such as a company logo to the template, insert an IMG tag that references the image. Example:
<img src="http://YOURWEBSITE.com/logo.png"/>
<a href="http://YOURACCOUNT.zendesk.com"><img src="http://YOURWEBSITE.com/logo.png"></a>
- CSS portal on the Mozilla Developer Network
- Help Center CSS Cookbook
Guidelines for customizing HTML emails
- Do not use CSS3 style declarations. Stick to CSS1 or 2.
- Do not add more DIV sections.
- Keep text formatting to a minimum. Lots of bold text can trigger spam filters.
- Don't add lots of images (another trigger for spam filters) and downscale the images that you do use.
- Use the ALT tag on all images. The tag displays a description of the image before users allow the images to be displayed.
- If you know the width and height of the image, define it. This forces the email client to reserve the image space in the layout of the email before the images have been downloaded.
- Background images are not supported in all email clients, so don't rely on them for information or functional design.
- Don't link to images in a closed Zendesk. If the intended recipient is not a registered and signed-in user, the images will be broken.
Editing the text template
The text template is used when the user elects not to read email messages in HTML format. To edit the text template, open the Email channel settings page and scroll down to Email Templates. Make sure to click Save when you're done.
The text email template consists of two system placeholders:
{{content}} {{footer}}
The {{content}}
placeholder inserts the text delimiter, the ticket title, the text that is generated from business rules (triggers, automations, or macros), and the ticket comments. The {{footer}}
placeholder is optional. You can remove it if you want. For more information, see Understanding the system placeholders.
{{delimiter}}
placeholder is not required in the text template. The {{content}}
placeholder contains the delimiter text.If you'd like to add a line to your emails, simply add it to the template.
Thanks for contacting MondoCam Support! {{content}} {{footer}}
Understanding the system placeholders
Most of the content in notification emails is generated dynamically by the Zendesk system. The dynamically generated content is represented by placeholders in the email templates. The placeholders are enclosed in double curly quotes, such as {{footer}}
.
The placeholders insert delimiter text, the email contents, and a footer.
{{delimiter}}
- Displays the line "##- Please type your reply above this line -##". The delimiter is used by the system to separate old content from new. When a person replies to an email, the new content in the reply is added to the ticket as a comment. This placeholder is required in the HTML template if you are using the email delimiter. See Customizing the delimiter text in emails.
{{content}}
- Displays the email content, which can include ticket comments and user profile photos. The content is defined in the trigger, automation, or anything else that sends email from your account. See Creating and managing triggers for ticket updates and notifications.
{{footer}}
- Optional. Displays the line "This email is a service from YourZendeskName." It also displays ticket properties, such as status and requester, in emails sent to agents. The properties are not displayed in emails sent to end-users. The list of properties can't be customized at this time.
{{footer_link}}
- Optional. Displays the line "Delivered by Zendesk". The word Zendesk is a link to http://www.zendesk.com.
{{styles}}
- Optional. For future use. Currently, the system uses this placeholder to inject styles when it detects that the locale is a Right-To-Left locale.
{{attributes}}
- Optional. For future use. Currently, the system uses this placeholder to inject attributes when it detects that the locale is a Right-To-Left locale.
48 Comments
Hello everyone,
this topic is great however and having a hard to making the email look like a "normal" email in terms of font and alignment.
1. Im not sure if the padding/margin adjustments I made are ok for all users in order to look normal. If I use what suggested at the thread the text is on the very very left in my OS X MAIL and iOS Mail.
2. Even harder: I can not adjust the font style of the content. While it works for my footer, changing font-family: 'Lucida Grande',Verdana,Arial,sans-serif; into 'Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; makes the template looking very strange. It does not work.
Can anyone help please?
Here is my code:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<style type="text/css">
table td {
border-collapse: collapse;
}
{{styles}}
</style>
</head>
<body {{attributes}} style="width: 100%!important; margin: 0; padding: 0;">
<div style="padding: 20px ; line-height: 18px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande',Verdana,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color:#000000;">
<div style="color: #b5b5b5;">{{delimiter}}</div>
{{content}}
</div>
<div style="padding: 20px ; line-height: 18px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: #aaaaaa;
margin: 10px 0 14px 0; padding-top: 10px;">
This is my footer. Font change works.
</div>
</body>
</html>
Hi there - are you trying the approach outlined in this article?
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203661346-Setting-up-an-unformatted-email-template
That is one way to make your email notifications look like normal emails without the extra formatting. If that doesn't work for you please let us know.
I would really like to be able to customise the delimiter for the 3 languages we support, because the wording is too formal. However, editing the {{txt.email.delimiter}} in Admin: Channels:Email is not an option because that would change the delimiter for all languages to that specific text, and editing {{delimiter}} in the HTML template would do the same. Help please!
Hi Jenneke - unfortunately there isn't an easy way to do this. The delimiter field will basically accept either the standard placeholder or static text of your choosing. There isn't a way to use custom dynamic content as the delimiter.
You could consider creating dynamic content and placing that at the very start of your notification triggers, that would then be below the delimiter (which you could replace with symbols or something innocuous). I haven't had a chance to test that approach though, so I recommend you reach out in a ticket if you try that and are having issues.
I'd like to be able to add a tag such as {recipients}. This would list everyone who received the email and who will receive the response.
~Kevin
Is there any way to change the font of the emails (do not want Lucida, Verdana, Tahoma, etc)?
Hey Patrick!
We have a Support Tip that should help you out: Changing your email template content fonts. Hope that helps!
Is it possible to show a {{group.name}} or something similar in the footer?
Or is the only option {{footer}} and {{footer.link}} or hard-coding HTML?
Hey Maurice!
The {{footer}} and {{footer.link}} placeholders are hard-coded and can't be altered. However, they are definitely optional, so if you want to leave them out and add something else at the bottom of your template, you certainly can. You can code the HTML so that the bottom of the email template is formatted to show a footer section that's formatted differently from the rest of the email.
As for showing the {{group.name}} or other placeholder in the footer section you create, those placeholders aren't made for use in the email template, so if you add them, nothing will show up in the email. You would need to add those placeholders to your trigger or automation notifications instead.
You can find more information about our placeholders here: Zendesk Support placeholders reference
Is it possible to use Google Fonts in email templates?
Hey Justin,
Yes, you would definitely be able to use Google Fonts in the email template! You can find more information about how to do that here: Changing your email template font
Thanks for your question!
Which plan must I have before I can customise the helpdesk email template? We have Team Support and Guide at the moment. Thanks
Welcome to the Community, Ruth!
You can access your email template on all plan levels. Just go to your Gear Icon > Channels > Email > Email Templates.
Let us know if you need anything else!
Hi Jessie, I don't have this option to make changes to the email templates. I've logged a ticket but waiting to hear back from Zendesk.
Hi, I have a question about {{footer}}
{{footer}}
Optional. Displays the line "This email is a service from YourZendeskName."-> Is this ZendeskName automatically changed if we have multiple brands? I am worried if this zendesk name isn't changed and remained with the default brand name.
For example if we have `Brand A` and `Brand B` than this footer will be automatically changed as per brands, so it will be like : This email is a service from "BrandA" or This email is a service from "BrandB" Right?
Hi Haeli. Yes - that is the intended behavior. We have multiple brands enabled and the footer will show that it was sent from the relevant Brand.
Hi Ruth! Sorry for the delayed response!
I see that you were able to get assistance with your issue in that ticket, and everything seems to be working for you. Let us know if you need anything else!
Thanks for jumping in to help, Justin!
Hi,
Am trying to add a link back to the tickets in an email trigger using following placeholders
{{ticket.link}}
or{{ticket.id}} or {{ticket.url}}
Unfortunately, the requester received an email without the link.
Please help.
Is this feature plan dependent?
Thanks,
Iohbha
Hi Iohbha - you will need an active Zendesk Guide portal in order for those links to work. Without that there is no end-user website for the links to route to.
Hi Bob,
Appreciate your immediate response.
We are in a B2B scenario and trying to setup ZenDESK for our Support needs.
Sorry for being naive, but I didn't follow the term "active Zendesk guide portal".
Zendesk Guide is the portal that allows end-users (non-Agents) to see their requests. You can read more about it here:
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203664346-Getting-started-with-Guide-Setting-up
Once Guide is enabled your users can access their tickets and those placeholders will render properly.
Thanks Bob. That was helpful.
Question on {{footer}} and branding: before we implemented branding the footer displayed the account name (i.e. the value in settings>account>branding>your Zendesk account name. After branding was implemented (one new brand was created for the purpose of an external help center only) it is showing our default brand as that is what all our tickets will use
I prefer to continue to have the account name populate--is there any way to keep account name in the footer with branding implemented?
Hello Lila,
To resolve this problem you just need to change the default brand's name under Admin > Manage > Brands
Click on the gear icon next to the brand which will pull up a settings page where you can adjust the name of the default brand which you can change to match the name of your company:
Hello, under the footer I have this text,
Is there possibly some way to remove that text.
Hi Kim,
There's no way to remove the message ID which you've reference in your screenshot. This is required in the footer so tickets within Zendesk thread correctly when replies are sent back and forth between customer and agent. It's currently hidden on the footer being in white text.
If you happen to use a different color in your email notifications, you can look at changing the message ID text to the same color so that it blends in and is not visible to the customer.
Hope this helps you with your query on this one. :)
Best,
Amie
Hi,
When ever the client sends in a support ticket, there is dummy text that says the following:
“Your request (6) has been received and is being reviewed by our support staff.
To add additional comments, reply to this email.”
I was able to edit the email template style / layout but I did not see a spot to edit this default text. Is there a spot to edit this section?
Thanks
Hi Donny,
The text you're looking to customize here lives in the Triggers in your account; not within the email template.
Head over to Admin > Business Rules > Triggers.
Edit any trigger which has "Requester" in the trigger title. These are the triggers which send out the email notifications (like you've noted in your comment above) to your end-users (ticket requesters).
On the editing page for the trigger, scroll to the bottom, where you'll find the email body section which contains the editable text. You can edit this text here to whatever you like.
Just in case you need, you can check out all of our guides which relate to triggers in our Trigger Resources section here.
This should put you on the right path from here with this. :)
Awesome! thank you
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