After you create or insert a content block, you can edit, unlink, or remove the content block as needed. You can manage a content block from within an article or from the content blocks list, which is the central repository of content blocks that can be shared between articles.
Viewing your content blocks list
If you are using content blocks in your articles, you can manage them from the content blocks list. You can see all of the content blocks that have been created in the account, when they were last edited, and in how many articles they are being used. You can click any content block in the list to open the content block editor, where Guide admins and agents with permission can update the content block. From the list you can also edit or delete content blocks. Only Guide admins can delete content blocks.
To view your content blocks list
- In Guide, click Guide admin at the top of the page, then click the Manage articles icon (
) in the sidebar. - Under the Tasks tab in the left menu, click Content blocks.
The content blocks list appears. You can click a content block to open the content block editor, where if you have the appropriate permissions, you can edit or delete the content block. See Editing a content block and Deleting a content block below.
Editing a content block
You can access the content block editor from the content block list or from any article that is using a content block. If you are a Guide admin or an agent with permissions to update content blocks, you can use the editor to make changes to the content block and update all articles in which the content block appears. You can edit the name of the block or any text in the content block. You can also insert videos or images in the content block. If you want to reformat the content (such as adding bold or inserting a link), use the content block editor toolbar. See Help center editor toolbar reference.
When you edit and update a content block, all articles that contain that content block will be automatically updated in your help center to include the new content without impacting the articles' publication status.
Both agents and admins can make changes to content blocks.
- In Guide, click Guide admin at the top of the page, then click the Manage articles icon () in the sidebar.
- Under the Tasks tab in the left menu, click Content blocks.
- Click a content block to open the content block editor.
- Use the content block editor to make any necessary changes.
- Click Update. Your updates are saved and visible in all articles that use the content block. You do not need to republish the articles for the changes to appear.
Note: When you edit content blocks from the content blocks list, you are editing the master version of a content block that doesn’t have any context of the articles in which it is used. Therefore, you cannot link a content block to the heading of an article that contains the content block. However, you can link a content block to other articles in your help center.
To edit a content block from within an article that is using it
- Open the article that contains the content block you want to edit in Edit mode.
- Hover over the content block you want to edit, click the Options menu icon (
), then click Edit.
Note: When you are editing a content block from within an article, the article remains open in the background. To return to the article without saving the content block, click the breadcrumb in the upper left corner of the window.
- Make any necessary changes in the content block editor.
- Click Update all articles.
Your updates are saved and visible in all articles that use the content block. You do not need to republish the articles for the changes to appear.
Unlinking a content block
To include the text from a content block in an article and modify it without affecting any other articles, you must unlink the content block. Once you unlink a content block, the text from the content block is inserted into the article as regular text and can be modified without impacting any other articles.
To unlink a content block
- Open the article that contains the content block you want to unlink in edit mode.
- Hover over the content block, click the Options menu icon () then click Unlink.
The content block becomes regular text and is no longer a content block.
If you unlink a content block, it is represented in the source code as an alphanumeric ID and not as regular HTML. In the following example the highlighted content block will be unlinked.
After unlinking the content block, the section of text is represented in HTML as an alphanumeric ID.
Removing a content block
If you want to remove a content block from the article completely, use the remove option.
To remove a content block
- Open the article that contains the content block you want to remove in edit mode.
- Hover over the content block, click the Options menu icon () then click Remove.
The content block disappears from the article. The content block remains in any other articles where it is being used and is still available for reuse.
Deleting a content block
If you are a Guide admin, you can delete a content block that you no longer want to appear in your help center articles. The Delete option only appears if the content block is not used in any articles. If the content block is used in one or more articles, you must remove the block from the affected articles before you can delete it.
When you delete a content block, it's permanently removed from your account. You cannot restore it afterwards.
To delete a content block
- In Guide, click Guide admin at the top of the page, then click the Manage articles icon () in the sidebar.
- Under the Tasks tab in the left menu, click Content blocks.
- From the content block list, click the title that you want to delete.
The content block opens in the content block editor. Refer to the side panel for information about where the content block appears. If the content block is being used in one or more articles, you must remove it from the affected articles before you can delete it.
-
Click the arrow next to the Update button, then select Delete.
Note: If the content block is being used in an article, the Delete option will not appear. Instead, the Update button will only allow you to update the existing content block.
- Click Delete content block.
39 Comments
I know the article says agents and admins can edit content blocks but we should be able to restrict agents from editing content blocks. There are many articles where we have restricted agents from updating but allowing them to update the content blocks in those articles is a loop hole. Just as articles, we should be able to choose the permissions for the content blocks too Katarzyna Karpinska
Lolu, we should have an update in this area coming out in Q4'22.
We have over 200 different brands. How do I update a content block across these different brands so I do not need to manually publish each brand's specific article manually?
Jeff Stephenson, we are currently finalizing work on publishing content blocks directly to Help Center without impacting article status. We'll be launching very very soon.
An issue with content blocks is that we are limited to 200. If we have 7000 articles and want the same feedback footer on all our articles using a block, this is a big issue! Will Zendesk make the number of content blocks unlimited?
Mary Paez, if you intend to put this feedback block in every one of your 7,000 articles, I'd suggest customizing an article template in your theme!
Is that different from an article template that uses the KCTemplate label and appears in Knowledge Capture when you create a new article?
If we need to modify that content block, we want all the articles to be updated. I don't want to update each article separately.
Also, if a template in the theme is created and we want to apply it to all existing articles, how is this done?
Mary Paez the templates are found in the code editor in the Customize Design section of your Guide Admin. If you want the exact same feedback section in each of your articles, you could simply update the existing, default article_page.hbs template (see first image). Updates to this single template are global—assuming you don't use other templates for your articles. Any change you make to it will update every article you have published. If you DO use other templates, you'd have to make the same updates to those as well.
We wanted to add an option to submit feedback in our articles, so we added what you see in lines 185-187 in the second image to the prebuilt, default article vote section in the article template. The third image shows what that looks like in the published article.
As to your question about applying a new template to all existing articles... that's a good question. You can select the template you want to use from an individual article's settings (see the last image), but I don't think there is a way to do this from the platform en masse. There MIGHT be a way to do this with the Help Center API, but that's beyond my expertise 😅.
Hope this helps!
Note: these templates don't have a WYSIWYG editor. If you are not comfortable working in the HTML and CSS, this may not be a "quick and easy" solution for you. That said, if your team has a web dev resource or someone with a little familiarity in web design, this can be a pretty easy fix to implement (and certainly faster and more scalable than using Content Blocks).
Image 1: The default article_page.hbs template shown below the custom article templates we have also built
Image 2: Code example for our feedback link
Image 3: Example of feedback link in published article
Image 4: The template selector in the Article Settings section of your article (just beneath Labels).
Is there a way to remove a paragraph of text from all our articles so that we can start fresh? Then, we can create this article template in our theme to replace the text
With 7000 artciles, I'm hoping you have a better way than doing it one-by-one!
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