You can import Google Docs into your Guide knowledge base. You can import up to 100 docs at a time. This is a great way to add new content or migrate existing content to your knowledge base.
You can import only Google Docs from your Google Drive account, and not other file types, such as Google Sheets or Google Slides. The doc import should properly handle document images and formatting, including lists, headings, colors, font sizes, centering, indentation, and tables. Your help center theme defines the final rendering of any content.
When you import a Google doc, there is no connection between the new article and the original Google Doc; the article is not synced with the Google Doc. You cannot export articles from your knowledge base to Google Docs.
You must be a Guide admin to connect to a Google Drive and import Google Docs.
- In Guide, click the Arrange content (
) icon in the sidebar, then click Import articles.
- Click Connect to sign in to your Google account, if you are not already signed
in.
If you have not yet connected Guide to your Google Drive account, clicking Connect takes you through the process of signing in to your account and granting Zendesk Guide.
- Click Next.
- In Select documents, click Open file picker.
You will see all the folders and files that you have access to.
Use the options in the upper-right to toggle between grid and list view or to sort your files.
- Search or navigate to the file(s) you want to import, then click Select.
You can select up to 100 files to import at a time.
The file appears in the Import Articles admin page. You can click Redo document selection if you need to choose a different file.
- Click Next.
- In Place documents, click Select section to choose a section in your
help
center for this article.
The articles will not be published when they are imported. Docs are imported as draft articles (on Professional), or work in progress articles, (on Enterprise).
- Click Next.
- In Start import, click Start import.
Don't close the window while the importer runs. The time it takes depends on how many docs you are importing.
Your docs will be imported as draft articles (on Professional), or work in progress articles (on Enterprise).
- When the import finishes, click Have a look to go to Arrange articles and find
your articles or click Start a new import to import more Google docs.Note: There is no connection between the resulting new articles and the original Google Docs; the articles are not synced with the Google Docs.
To access your articles later, you can find them in your list of drafts (on Professional), or your list of work in progress, (on Enterprise).
44 Comments
Is there a way to determine what caused my import to fail? There's not much of an error message other than "Unable to upload this document"
The guide I was using was
The graphics used were created in Photoshop.
ZenDesk Professional subscription/Guide Admin
Other comments have mentioned this too, but can you write a guide to formatting Google doc templates so you can seamlessly upload them onto Zendesk and not have to redo the styling/HTML?
Here's the problem: Zendesk is not a good CMS for collaborating/editing content through its lifecycle before publish.
Hey Carolyn, can you clarify what issues you're seeing with formatting? The integration should respect formatting, unless you have CSS in your Help Center that supersedes your specifications.
Hey Madison,
Basically the Google doc inputs a lot of extra styling and span junk that I end up having to strip out. So, it's actually easier for me to:
Hi,
Can you anyone help me, Is there an only one[Google Drive] way we can import article into Zendesk. Any other way instead of connecting google drive we can able connect Sharepoint?
Thank in advance
KP.
Hi Karuppiah,
Currently no one has a built a Sharepoint importer for Zendesk.
Has anyone found an answer or update to Karl Palma's question above? I am going through bulk uploading several hundred articles via Google Docs to our new help centers right now and consistently getting that error - that it couldn't be uploaded. However, most of the articles that are failing have literally nothing different than the ones that are succeeding. Most of them don't even have images or any real formatting in them - just plain text.
We're also having the same problems as Carolyn. Imported Google Docs result in all sorts of custom HTML being brought across, which is more hassle to manually strip out than cmd-shift-v (paste-special) the text in and manually reformat for each article.
Currently considering having to move authors to markdown drafting and setting up a converter. Otherwise going to spend too long manually formatting these articles.
Examples of stuff that's being pulled across:
Are there any plans on adding the following features to Zendesk Guide with importing documents?
1. Update/replace the content of an existing article?
2. Ongoing Sync with Zendesk and Google Doc. So my team can edit in google drive and it will transfer over to zendesk guide?
In addition to Hannah's request, I would like the ability to turn off Google Doc comments being imported as footnotes.
Hi Jennifer.
You fail to mention that there is a limitation at play here.
Even though Google Docs supports the DOCX format, ZenDesk will not find these documents in the file picker and, hence, DOCX documents saved in Google Docs on Google Drive are not able to be imported.
Jonah
was the bullet level, sub-level formatting fixed? I see all the sub-levels just become bullets
Carolyn Elder
Hi, hope you don't mind my reaching out.
I was reviewing your method of bringing a Google Doc into Zendesk from (apx.) May, 2020.
For a doc someone else write, I'm gong to try it so I don't have to rely on Zendesk's translation process (per your 4th bullet point.). Worth my time..
That said, you did not mention images in your instructions, and the Google doc has at least 6. How did you deal with the images? (Or, were there no images in your original doc?)
Many thanks.
Best,
Stephen
I've been experiencing similar issues with broken formatting using the import tool from Google Docs. Trying to fix this manually would involve going through the html code for all my articles (there are quite a lot):
This is a very time-consuming process and would not be feasible for the amount of articles we have. The span tags continue to be an issue even if I copy/paste the text. Has any solution been determined for the broken formatting issues with the import tool?
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