The help center editor provides toolbars and shortcuts that you can use to format your articles and content blocks. This is not the same editor that is used in community posts.
The following table describes the toolbar options that are available for the article and content block editors. Because the tools vary depending on whether you are editing articles or content blocks, the table identifies each tool with a "Yes" or “No” in the editor columns to identify the editor that supports that tool.
Note: You can also format content blocks with Markdown, a simple markup language that you can use to add formatting to plain text. See Formatting text with Markdown.
| Toolbar button | Name | Action | Article editor | Content block editor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Heading selector | Select the HTML heading you want to apply to the text. | Yes | Yes |
 |
Formatting selector | Select the formatting that you want to apply to the text (bold, underline, italic, or block quote). | No | Yes |
 |
Bold | Bold or unbold text. | Yes | Yes |
 |
Underline | Underline or remove underline from text. | Yes | Yes |
 |
Italic | Italicize or remove italics. | Yes | Yes |
 |
Block quote | Apply block quote styling to text. Block quotes are set apart from the main text as a paragraph with visual styling. | No | Yes |
 |
Size selector | Increase or decrease font size. | Yes | Yes |
 |
Text color selector | Change text color using the color selector. | Yes | Yes |
 |
Text background color selector | Change text background color using the color selector. | No | Yes |
 |
Code block | (Content block editor) Creates a block of pre-formatted code. Each code block is assigned a specific programming language and supports basic editing tools (for example, changing the line indentation).
(Article editor) Creates a block of plain text that can be used to represent code. |
Yes | Yes |
 |
Code block type selector | Select or change the programming language that you want to apply to the code block. | No | Yes |
 |
Bulleted list | Create or remove a bulleted list. | Yes | Yes |
 |
Numbered list | Create or remove a numbered list. | Yes | Yes |
 |
Align/indent selector | Align text left, center, or right; indent or outdent text.
|
Yes | Yes |
 |
Insert/edit link | Create or edit a link and link text. You can link to a URL, heading in the article, or another article. See Inserting links. | Yes | Yes |
 |
Insert image | Insert an image using the file browser. The image file size limit is 20 MB. See Inserting images. | Yes | Yes |
 |
Add video | Insert a video that is hosted on a supported service. See Inserting videos. | Yes | No |
 |
Source code | View or edit the HTML source code. | Yes | Yes |
 |
Table | Create or modify tables using the menu options. | Yes | No |
 |
Insert content block
(Enterprise plans only) |
Insert a content block into the article. See Creating and inserting reusable information with content blocks. | Yes | No |
16 Comments
Hi Zendesk Team,
According to SEO best practices, just one H1 header should appear on each page. (For article purposes that H1 should be the Article Title and that is assigned in the template article.hbs)
The editor toolbar allows anyone to put 1 and more H1 headers. There is a way to remove H1 from the headers options in the dropdown list?
Hi Diego –
That's a really good point. For visibility, would you mind posting to our Feedback on Guide topic, using this template to format your post? That way our product team will see it, and other users can upvote and/or add their own comments to it. Thanks!
Hi Zendesk Team,
Is there a way to have a customized content template for all the existing Knowledge base articles? For instance, headings and sub-headings having different font sizes and colors....
We want to update all existing articles with a standard global template...
Is there a way to do "split-window" html editing in Guide?
Because everything that renders in Zendesk is governed by templates and style sheets, it would be really handy to split the article editing window into a WYSIWYG and an HTML window (instead of one or the other) and see how your edits are rendered in place with in real time. Swapping back and forth is a pain because it always goes to the top of the page and you have to scroll down if you are making a change to a piece of code in a table or a list, or if you tweaking an image tag, etc.
Hey Zendesk,
I see that you can change the color of text but is there a way to highlight the text? When you are looking to bring attention to information I find it easier to read text that is highlighted instead of colored font. It could also cause issues for customers that have vision impairments such as color blindness.
Thank you
One ubiquitous and critical button in pretty much all other WYSIWYG tool bars is confoundingly missing here: clear formatting. Since so much of our documentation starts elsewhere for necessary collaboration -- especially Google Docs -- it is incredibly tedious to have to deal with this in html to remove carryover artifacts when something is directly pasted over (which is of course super common).
Hi all, are you planning to add more toolbar actions to the Content Block editor?
We're looking for adding pictures and tables (also possibly video) to the content blocks, which is currently not possible.
You then could create content blocks as nice looking headers and footers for articles.
For the best visibility to our product team, would you mind posting your feedback to our Feedback - Help Center (Guide) topic, using this template? Thanks!
Are there any shortcut keys assigned to Headings? If I am a Mac user, I would like to use Cmd+Option+number to change to any Headings like in Google Docs.
Hi Tsuyoshi,
Yes, you can use keyboard shortcuts to help format your knowledge base articles. Below are the available keyboard shortcuts and their functions.
For reference, please see screenshot below:
For more information, please see below article:
Keyboard shortcuts for formatting knowledge base articles
I hope this helps!
Gabriel Manlapig Thank you for the response.
I tried to enter Ctrl + Alt + number, but it doesn't work on Chrome.
Does Alt means Option key? Mac is using Option instead of Alt, so I recommend Zendesk updates to the key.
In additional, I would like Zendesk to support the Cmd key as the same shortcut key.
My personal feeling is that the Command key is more familiar to Mac users than Option. And it's the same operation as Google Docs, so it's not confusing across services.
Hi Tsuyoshi,
I also tried this using Ctrl + Alt + number on Chrome and it is working just fine.
For reference, please see sample GIF below:
And yes, Alt means Option key on Mac, this means that the keys that you will need to press is Ctrl + Option (Alt) + number.
We understand that the Command key is more familiar to Mac users than Option, and that's a really good point. You can spin-up a feature request in the Feedback on Guide section about this topic using this template to format your post. Thanks!
Hey all,
Does anyone know if it's possible to hide any/some icons in the toolbar? Eg. "add video" because links should be used instead and would not want to tempt the content managers to use the built-in feature. Maybe with some custom code?
Fingers crossed! :D
Gabriel Manlapig Sorry for the reply.
> I also tried this using Ctrl + Alt + number on Chrome and it is working just fine.
I just checked and it works as expected. I understand regarding the feedback.
Thanks!
Where should I be looking to add components to the article rich text editor? I'd like to add abbreviations via a button and with a modal—similar to how the insert/edit link button works.
Hi Geoff,
Are you planning to use HTML for that? If yes, this might help: How can I format the text of the article with the source code?
Hope this helps!
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