You can easily customize the look and feel of your help center using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). This cookbook is designed to help you make your help center look the way you want.
To access and edit the CSS in Guide, see Customizing the CSS or JavaScript.
If you're new to CSS or maybe a little rusty, check out the following tutorials to get you up to speed:
-
Getting started with CSS is the most complete CSS tutorial aimed at complete beginners. It guides you through the basic features of the language with practical examples that you can try for yourself.
-
CSS Beginner Tutorial gives you just enough to get started.
You can also customize the look of your help center using the Help Center templating language or JavaScript:
Table of contents
The cookbook is organized into sections covering elements of a help center. Each section includes CSS code that you can paste directly into your theme's stylesheet. Use the code as-is or edit it to make it your own.
The cookbook isn't exhaustive. By modifying the HTML templates and CSS stylesheet, the number of things you can do is limited only by your imagination.
Header and footer
- Change the background color of the header or footer
- Change the height of the header or footer
- Change the space above or below the header or footer
- Change the appearance of the selected language
- Change the appearance of the Submit a Request link
- Hide the Submit a Request link
- Change the appearance of the Sign In link
- Change the logo dimensions
Search
- Change the width or height of the search field
- Change the background color of the search field
- Change the appearance of the search text
- Change the appearance of the results page heading
- Change the appearance of search result keyword highlighting
- Change the appearance of the Knowledge base and Community headings
- Change the spacing between the results
- Change the appearance of the result text
- Change the color of the result links
Breadcrumbs
Article lists
Knowledge base articles
- Change the appearance of article titles
- Change the appearance of article text
- Change the color of article links
- Change the appearance of the author's name
- Change the appearance of the last updated string
- Change the appearance of "Was this article helpful?"
- Change the appearance of the vote counter
- Change the appearance of "Have more questions? Submit a request"
- Change the appearance of the Comments title
- Change the appearance of comment text
Community questions and answers
- Change the appearance of question titles
- Change the appearance of question text
- Change the color of question links
- Change the appearance of the question author's name
- Change the appearance of the time since question published
- Change the appearance of the share question link
- Change the appearance of the answers heading
- Change the appearance of answer text
- Change the appearance of the answer author's name
- Change the appearance of the time since answer published
- Change the appearance of the share answer link
Header and footer
The header displays a logo and other components depending on the theme and user roles. You can use the footer to display related links, information about your company, or legal notices.
Back to the table of contents.
Change the background color of the header or footer
Change or add the background-color property in the following selectors.
Header:
.header {
background-color: #666;
}
Footer:
.footer {
background-color: #333;
}
Change the height of the header or footer
Change or add the height property in the following selectors.
Header:
.header {
height: 70px;
}
Footer:
.footer {
height: 20px;
}
Change the space above or below the header or footer
Change or add margin-bottom and margin-top properties in the following selectors.
Header:
.header {
margin-bottom: 20px;
}
Footer:
.footer {
margin-top: 10px;
}
Change the appearance of the selected language
Add the following selector and property:
.language-selector .dropdown-toggle {
color: green;
}
Change the appearance of the Submit a Request link
Add the following selector and add or modify text properties:
.submit-a-request {
font-size: 14px;
color: green;
}
Hide the Submit a Request link
Modify the following selector:
.submit-a-request {
display:none;
}
Change the appearance of the Sign In link
Add or modify text properties in the following selector:
.login {
font-size: 14px;
color: green;
}
Change the logo dimensions
Although the recommended logo image size is 200px by 50px, you can override this default if needed.
To change your logo size
- In Guide, click the Customize design (
) icon in the sidebar.
- Click Edit theme.
- Click CSS to open the CSS stylesheet, then search for the following rule:
.logo img { max-height: 37px; }
To search, click inside the code editor and press Control+F (Windows) or Cmd+F (Mac).
- Modify the height property in the ".logo img" selector to match the height of the image.
- Click Save.
Search
The search box looks for content in both the knowledge base and community and displays links on a results page. If you want, you can remove the search box. For more information, see the search helper in the Help Center Templates guide.
Back to the table of contents.
Change the width or height of the search field
Change the width or height values in the following selectors.
Large search box:
.search input[type=search] {
height: 50px;
width: 90%;
}
Small search box:
.search-small input[type=search] {
height: 50px;
width: 320px;
}
Change the background color of the search field
Change the background property in the following selectors.
Large search box:
.search input[type=search] {
background: #999;
}
Small search box:
.search-small input[type=search] {
background: #999;
}
Change the appearance of the search text
Change or add text properties in the following selectors.
Large search box:
.search {
font-size: 12px;
font-family: Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif;
}
Small search box:
.search-small {
font-size: 12px;
font-family: Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif;
}
Change the appearance of the results page heading
The heading on the search results page consists of the number of results returned for the search term. Example: 9 results for "serial number".
Add the following selector if it's not already in the stylesheet, and change or add text properties:
.search-results-heading {
font-size: 36px;
font-family: Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif;
}
Change the appearance of search result keyword highlighting
Highlighted terms within search results are wrapped with the inline element <em> under the .search-result-description container. If you want to have highlights appear as bold with a yellow background, you would do the following:
.search-result-description em {
font-weight: bold;
background-color: #FFF3CA;
padding: 0px 3px 2px;
border-radius: 3px;
}
Change the appearance of the Knowledge base and Community headings
Add or modify text properties in the following selector:
.search-results-subheading {
font-size: 24px;
font-family: Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif;
}
Change the spacing between the results
Add a margin-bottom property in the following selector:
.search-result {
margin-bottom: 20px;
}
Change the appearance of the result text
Change or add text properties in the following selector:
.search-result {
font-size: 105%;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
Change the color of the result links
Add or modify the color property in the following selector:
.search-result a {
color: #484;
}
Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs help users navigate content in your help center. If you want, you can remove the breadcrumbs. For more information, see the breadcrumbs helper in the Help Center Templates guide.
Back to the table of contents.
Change the space above and below the breadcrumbs
Add or change the padding properties in the following selector:
.breadcrumbs {
padding-top; 20px;
padding-bottom: 16px;
}
Change the appearance of the breadcrumb text
Change or add text properties in the following selector:
.breadcrumbs li {
font-size: 12px;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
Change the color of the breadcrumb links
Add the following selector and property:
.breadcrumbs li a {
color: #484;
}
Change the pointer character (>) in the breadcrumbs
Change the color and content properties in the following selector:
.breadcrumbs li + li:before {
color: #158EC2;
content: ">>";
}
Article lists
Depending on the theme, article lists are used on the home page, category landing pages, and section landing pages.
Back to the table of contents.
Change the space around the list of articles
Add or modify the following selector and padding properties:
.article-list {
padding-left: 16px;
padding-right; 20px;
}
Change the spacing between the articles
Change the margin-bottom property in the following selector:
.article-list > li {
margin-bottom: 10px;
}
Change the appearance of the article links
Change or add text properties in the following selector:
.article-list > li {
font-size: 12px;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
Change the color of the article links
Add the following selector and property:
.article-list li a {
color: #FFF;
}
Knowledge base articles
You can change the look and feel of the articles in your knowledge base.
Back to the table of contents.
Change the appearance of article titles
Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.article-header h1 {
color: #993;
font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;
font-size: 20px;
}
Change the appearance of article text
Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.article-body {
color: #666;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 13px;
}
Change the color of article links
Add or modify the following selector and property:
.article-body a {
color: #930;
}
Change the appearance of the author's name
Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.article-author a {
color: #669;
font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;
font-size: 16px;
}
Change the appearance of the last updated string
Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.article-updated {
color: #CCC;
font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;
font-size: 13px;
}
Change the appearance of "Was this article helpful?"
Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.article-vote-question {
color: #763;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 14px;
}
Change the appearance of the vote counter
Example: "6 out of 8 found this helpful". Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.article-vote-count {
font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;
font-size: 10px;
}
Change the appearance of "Have more questions? Submit a request"
Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.article-more-questions {
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 105%;
}
Change the appearance of the Comments title
Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.article-comments h2 {
color: #666;
font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;
font-size: 130%;
}
Change the appearance of comment text
Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.comment-body {
color: #666;
font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;
font-size: 12px;
}
Community questions and answers
You can change the look and feel of the content in your community.
Back to the table of contents.
Change the appearance of question titles
Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.question-title {
color: #484;
font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;
font-size: 120%;
}
Change the appearance of question text
Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.question-text {
color: #666;
font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;
font-size: 14px;
}
Change the color of question links
Add or modify the following selector and property:
.question-text a {
color: #484;
}
Change the appearance of the question author's name
Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.question-author {
font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;
font-size: 12px;
}
To change the link color, add or modify the following selector and property:
.question-author a {
color: #484;
}
Because the question author's name, the time since the question was published, and the share link are usually grouped together on a page, it makes good design sense to make all three elements look the same. To do so, use the following combined selector:
.question-author, .question-published, .question-share {
font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;
font-size: 12px;
}
Change the appearance of the time since question published
Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.question-published {
font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;
font-size: 12px;
}
Change the appearance of the share question link
Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.question-share {
font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;
font-size: 12px;
}
Change the appearance of the answers heading
Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.answer-list-heading {
color: #4CC;
font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;
font-size: 105%;
}
Change the appearance of answer text
Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.answer-text {
color: #333;
font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;
font-size: 105%;
}
Change the appearance of the answer author's name
Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.answer-author {
font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;
font-size: 12px;
}
To change the link color, add or modify the following selector and property:
.answer-author a {
color: #484;
}
Because the answer author's name, the time since the answer was published, and the share link are usually grouped together on a page, it makes good design sense to make all three elements look the same. To do so, use the following combined selector:
.answer-author, .answer-published, .answer-share {
font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;
font-size: 12px;
}
Change the appearance of the time since answer published
Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.answer-published {
font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;
font-size: 12px;
}
Change the appearance of the share answer link
Add or modify the following selector and properties:
.answer-share {
font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;
font-size: 12px;
}
100 Comments
Hi @Alex,
If you are using default Copenhagen theme then this is what you have to do -
Go to line no.709 in your CSS file and replace
How do I break up the categories on my home page? I have like 23 categories and I want to break them up into different sections on my home page with a title at the top of each section.Any help would be appreciated.
Hi, question for folks here:
I'm trying to move the article-sidebar to the right side of my article page, so that the orientation of the article grid is reversed, resulting in the following layout:
Free Space | Content | Sidebar
17% | 66% | 17%
Seems like it would be simple change to the CSS, but I must be missing it here. Let me know if you have any pointers. Thanks!
Hi @Reed,
Considering that you are using Copenhagen Theme, go to line no. 1172 in your style.css file and replace the code with the below code -
Let me know if you face any issue.
Team Diziana
Having a bit of an issue with trying to modify the appearance of links in my articles.
In my CSS, the only code snippet that looks somewhat like the one posted in this article for links, is this:
.article-body a:visited {
color: darken($link_color, 20%);
}
It feels as though this snippet is used to control the appearance of a visited link, but I can't tell if it's also supposed to be used to control the appearance of an un-visited link. Right now the link text in our articles is a very dark blue--almost indistinguishable from the regular black text. I wanted to change that to a lighter blue (something like hex #4289f4) but if I try to add that code to the above snippet, nothing really happens.
If I add the link code snippet shown in the above article, and enter a color number, there is still no change to the link appearance. I've even tried wildly different colors (like bright red) to test this, but...nothing. I'm saving my code changes and previewing them, as well as logging in to the Help Center and looking at articles directly, but all links continue to show as a dark blue.
Any ideas on what I might be doing wrong?
Hi Heather,
Try this;
.article-body a {
color: #4289f4;
}
Thanks Andrew, that worked.
But...
Now there's no change to a link when you click it, so no way to tell what links you may have already visited on a page. Any way to get both a custom link color and a way to change the color when a link's been visited?
Thanks!
Ah, sorry i should have stated that you'd need both, like so;
.article-body a {
color: #4289f4;
}
.article-body a:visited {
color: darken($link_color, 20%);
}
Hmmm. So, when I have just the one snippet, then I can change the link color, no problem. But when I have both snippets, the link color won't change, no matter what color code I put in.
So right now my scenarios are like this:
With just the .article-body a code snippet - link color can be changed, but no indication of what links have been visited.
With just the .article-body a:visited snippet - link color cannot be changed, and no indication of what links have been visited
With both the snippets - link color cannot be changed and no indication of what links have been visited
Not sure what's causing the problem, but when the .article-body a:visited snippet is present, it doesn't seem to like it.
I'm interested in changing the text of the 'Was this article helpful?' button. I believe these instructions just explain how to change the style/format. Is there a way to edit this text?
Hi @Heather,
Try this:
Let me know if this solves your issue.
Team Diziana
Hi @Emma,
In your article_page.hbs template replace {{t 'was_this_article_helpful'}} with the TEXT you want to show and you'll be good to go.
Let us know how it goes for you.
Team Diziana
Hi @Trapta,
Thanks for the reply. It seems that whenever I change anything about {{t 'was_this_article_helpful'}}, the text disappears from the article page entirely. Can you give me an example of what it should look like if I want it to say "Did this article answer your question?"?
Thanks!
Hi @Trapta,
Thanks for the response. When I use the code snippet provided there's still no color change to indicate links have been visited.
Interestingly enough, if I try to use the snippet provided with a different color code (e.g. #990099, etc.) all the links go black, same color as the text, no matter what color code I use. And still nothing indicates clicked links. The only way I can get the links to go back to a bright blue is to change the code back to #4289f4.
Thanks!
@Emma,
It should look like this
Let us know how it goes for you.
Team Diziana
Hello All,
I have a few things that I would like to change on my modified Copenhagen Set.
1. I would like to make the FAQ and Announcement buttons Solid all the time. I am able to set the color, but it is transparent until I hover. I want it to be the color without the hover.
2. I would like to make the Submit a Request link a button in the header. I have seen this done, but I have not been able to find any hints on how to do it. I feel like i have read that I would need to remove the current code for the link, and replace it with button code.
3. I would like to remove the graphic where the search field is,and just have the search field on the main background.
4. I would like to change the search field to have a button on the right side of the field that says search, and match the colors to what my other buttons are set to.
I can separate these into separate questions if the makes more sense.
Hey Timothy,
Hopefully some of our community members can jump in here and provide some guidance for you :)
In the meantime, I would recommend taking a look at the following documentation:
We also do have a Professional Services team available that can assist with these customizations at an additional cost.
If this is something you're interested in let us know. We can get a ticket created on your behalf and passed over to the appropriate team.
Cheers!
Hi Charles,
I need a help with customizing the help center..I have been able to customize the copenhegan theme as below:
What I need is.... when the user clicks on any of the Buttons above, application should be taking me to a Ticket form (from the list) as appropriate, skipping the new_request_page.hbs (request page).
The ticket forms list are as below:
Do you have any articles handy, that can guide me?
Thanks,
Suman
Hi Suman, if I understand correctly, what you want is to find the ID of the form you wish to link.
You can get each form's ID by editing it, and the URL will give you the ID, as in:
yourdomain.com/agent/admin/ticket_forms/edit/XXXXXXXXX
Once you have the form IDs, the path behind each anchor button should be like so:
yourdomain.com/hc/es/requests/new?ticket_form_id=XXXXXXXXX
Hey Pedro...Thanks for the help .... your suggestions worked great...Thank u again...
Awesome! Happy to help :-)
Is it possible to add a background image to a header section? I want it to be in line with the hero image, and have it be a sticky header as users navigate down the page.
Hey Andres,
It looks like one of our Community Moderators was able to provide some custom code on the following post: Help Center - Change design header to match hero image
You may want to give that a try and see if that gets you the results you're looking for.
Hope this helps!
Hi - I have a few things that I need to do and am finding myself stuck. Was hoping some wonderful people in here could help me figure it out. My helpdesk is: https://dialere.zendesk.com/hc/en-us
Thank you in advance to anyone who helps.
Hi @AshleySargent,
On #1 : Which plan are you subscribed to?
You can try one of these two options for #2:
It is work-intensive on your part, but you can enter an Alias in their profile to show only the first name: Go to Settings > People >
you can enable the option to edit their names in their profile and the end-user can opt to show only their first name: (Go to settings > customers)
#3: Why do you wish to remove my activities?
Hi Stassa.
1) Professional
3) I think the client would just prefer it to be more clear, so is there a way to change the label from My Activities to My Tickets?
Hi Ashley -
I believe the solution presented in this community post will do what you're looking for:
Changing all "My Activities" text to "My Tickets"
Hi there, just a quick one. I'm trying to change the css style of the search recommendation links (for example, change the blue text colour to green) but can't seem to find the location?
Hi Genevieve Katelis,
Add the below code at the bottom of your style.css file.
Let me know how it goes for you.
Thanks
Hey Trapta, this didn't work for me :( Any thoughts?
Thanks for your response
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