Content blocks are segments of text that are grouped and reused across one or more articles in your help center. You can create a content block from your help center or from within an article where you want to use the content block. In both cases, the content block appears in the content block list, where you can view the content block and where it is used, edit the content block, or remove the content block from your help center.
Guide admins can create and insert content blocks on any article that is enabled for content blocks. Agents can only create and insert content blocks in articles that they have permission to edit. Guide admins or agents with permission to update content blocks can edit and update content blocks in published articles that include those blocks.
Creating a content block from the help center
When you create a content block from the help center menu, the content block is added to the content blocks list and is available to insert into any article where you want it to appear. See Inserting a content block into an article.
Content blocks created from the help center take on the default locale of the help center, regardless of the language used within the content block itself. For example, if you create content blocks from a help center where the default language is American English, the content block locale will also be English, even if the body of the content block contains Spanish text.
To create a content block from the help center
- In your help center or Guide admin, click Add in the top menu bar, then select Content block.
- Give the content block a meaningful name, so you can easily identify it when you reuse it in other articles. This is an internal name that identifies your content block on the content blocks list. It is not visible to end users.
- Use the toolbar and autoformatting options to format the content within the content block as needed, for example, adding bold, creating a bulleted list, or inserting a link or media (such as video). See Help center article editor reference.
Formatting the content in a content block affects all articles that use this content block.
- Click Create.
The content is now a content block and is stored independently for reuse by other articles. You can edit the content block or return to the content block list to perform other management tasks.
Creating a content block from an article
You can create a content block from a single unit of content, for example, a paragraph, a section heading, a code block, or a bulleted list. You can also create a content block from multiple (consecutive) sections of content in an article, or even from the text of an entire article. You can use one or many content blocks within an article, alongside regular text. In this section regular text refers to any article text that you create that is not in a content block.
Content blocks created from an article assume the article’s locale, regardless of the language used within the content block itself. For example, if you create a content block from a Spanish article, the content block’s locale will also be Spanish, even if the content of the block contains English text.
Content blocks are automatically enabled for all existing help center articles. However, if you're creating a new article, you must first save the article to enable content blocks. After you save the article, you can begin creating reusable content.
To create a content block
- If you have not done so already, save the article in which you want to create a content block.
- In your article, select the content you want to make into a reusable content block.
Note: If you select a fragment of text, for example, one sentence within a paragraph, the whole paragraph will be included in the new content block. A paragraph or section heading is the smallest fragment of content that you can include in a content block.
- On the top toolbar, click the content block (
) icon.
Note: When you are creating 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. - Give the content block a meaningful name, so that you can easily identify it when you reuse it in other articles.
- Use the toolbar and autoformatting options to format the content within the content block as needed, for example, adding bold, creating a bulleted list, or inserting a link or media (such as a video). See Help center article editor reference.
Formatting the content in a content block affects all articles that use this content block.
- Click Create.
The content is now a content block and is stored independently for reuse by other articles. In the article, the text appears with a shaded background. You don't need to save the article to create a content block.
Inserting a content block into an article
Content blocks are automatically enabled for all existing help center articles. However, if you're creating a new article, you must first save the article before you can insert reusable content.
To insert content from a content block
- In your article, click where you want to add reusable content.
- On the top toolbar, click the content block () icon.
A list of available content blocks appears.
- Choose the content block that you want to add.
Refine your results by:
- Specifying part of the content block name. Only the content block name is searched, not the content block body.
- Sorting by edited date or created date.
- Sorting alphabetically.
- Click a content block to preview the content.
- Click Insert.
The content block is inserted into the article and appears with a shaded background.
In the source code view (
If your cursor is above a content block and you click the source code view, you will only see the HTML code for the text above the content block. To see the HTML code below the content block, place your cursor below the content block, then open the source code view.
), you won't see any HTML code for content blocks, only for your regular text. This is because content blocks live independently in the help center. Additionally, you'll only see the HTML code for the chunk of regular text where your cursor is placed, between content blocks.
50 Comments
It seems that if you include accordion content within a content block, the accordion toggle functionality no longer works when the content block is then added to another article. Is there a workaround for this? Thanks.
Hi Technical Writer - Marco Haber,
We are not supporting advanced article components in content blocks just yet, so I'm not surprised that this is not shared.
Out of curiosity, how have you tried to implement the accordion? was it directly in the content block source code? It might work better if you define a class for the accordion in the theme and apply it to a given element in the block.
Katarzyna Karpinska It would be great if we had greatly more flexibility when using HTML source code. We're desperate for a solution that supports images on CBs, even if we source images from outside and code them directly with HTML. Other things too e.g. text color.
Ricardo Pereira, if there are no unforeseen earthquakes we'll be launching images in CBs within the next month! Add-ons to formatting tools in CBs will follow shortly after.
That would be a great update!
Any news on inserting images into content blocks?
Jeff Stephenson, yes!! We are planning to launch it within a few weeks!
I would also see a better use case for content blocks in macros in our company, likely even better than for the articles. Is there something planned along these lines, or is there an alternative we can use?
Hello, is there any way to make the content block visible to only certain users? I'd like to add a content block to an article that's only visible to signed-in users
Rick Marx, thank you for your comment, we definitely see the potential of extending content blocks to macros but we have some other pressing work in the pipeline we need to get to before that will be possible. The same applies for visibility permissions for content blocks Eduardo Escobar
Hi Katarzyna Karpinska,
I was wondering if there is any news on the availability of tables in Content Blocks?
I was hoping to create a banner displaying which articles relate to certain products my company offers (similar to the image Zendesk uses in their articles :D ) and found creating a html table was easier than using an image.
Best regards
Stephen
Want to chime in here that even lightweight custom html would be incredibly useful. I'm currently trying to use blocks to replicate ~6-10 workflow articles that are mostly the same with some variance, but since I can't edit the html, numbered lists in blocks must start with 1.
Stephen,
We had to shift our priorities a little and are currently looking into working on tables in content blocks in Q3 this year.
Laine Brusk,
I hear you, we are working on integrating our article and content blocks better in the future. In the meantime, I'll check with my team if we can add support to <ol> start attribute.
Adding a content block seems to hamper my ability to then edit source code. Is this expected behaviour? I can no longer access source code for the whole article. I have to click above the content block to access that piece of code, then below the block to access that piece of code. Is it possible to retain a view of the entire article, including the content block, in the source code editor?
Hi Aoife O'Neill It is true that content block "slices" the content of articles in pieces and if you want to see HTML you need to look into all blocks separately (in the case of the article content - if you should put the cursor in the text below content block to see its HTML). We are working on some improvements in this area that will hopefully allow you to see all the article content as one consecutive HTML but content blocks will always be separate as they don't "live" in the article.
Katarzyna Karpinska Do you have any plans to allow correct update of the body of articles with content blocks via the API.
Updating an article with content blocks from the API is kind of allowed, but creates some strange state for the article. The changes (made via API) will be visible in the online (published) version but not in the Guide Editor. So basically an article changed this way will have two content states: one with the API changes AND the Guide editor state (without the API changes). If a further change is made from Guide editor, this will overwrite all the changes made with the API.
This issue creates some serious limitations for some of my customers who have content blocks enabled and trying to use functions like find and replace across many articles (we're a Zendesk development partner providing apps such as the Help Center Manager to Zendesk customers).
Thank you!
Hi sorin, yes, and hopefully within the next couple of weeks. Keep an eye on our announcement page :)
This is great news! Thank you Katarzyna Karpinska
Once a content block exists, is there a way to nest it under a different language? Like if it was created under English, can it be moved to Spanish so it shows up with the other Spanish content blocks when you go to insert it?
Hi Kaarina,
You can use any content block in any language, e.g. you can use English content block in Spanish translation. When it comes to searching for it however it won't be visible under Spanish, in order to find it you'd need to search for it either in its original language or use All languages option in the drop-down by the search field.
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