Creating and editing articles in the knowledge base

What's my plan?

Suite

Any plan

Support with

Guide, any plan

Guide admins can create new articles and edit all existing articles in the knowledge base. Agents who are not Guide admins can create and edit articles if they have management permissions. End users can't contribute articles to the knowledge base.

You must have at least one section in the knowledge base before you can start adding articles. When you create an article, you must assign it to a section. For more information, see Anatomy of the help center.

Topics covered in this article:

• Adding articles to the knowledge base
• Editing articles in the knowledge base

Related article:

• Migrating existing content to help center
• Upcoming and latest help center article editor UI enhancements

Adding articles to the knowledge base

Guide admins can create new articles. Agents can create new articles if they have management permissions. Agent privileges for new articles vary depending on their management permissions. See the complete list of agent privileges for existing, published articles.

You can create a maximum of 40,000 total articles, excluding translations. This limit includes articles in all states, except archived.

To add an article to the knowledge base

1. In your help center or Knowledge admin, click Add in the top menu bar, then select Article.

   

2. Enter your content.
   • Use the article editor's toolbar for formatting options or to add links, images, or tables. This toolbar is not the same as the toolbar in community posts.

     

     For information, see the Help center article editor toolbar reference. See also Inserting links, Inserting images in articles and content blocks, and Inserting videos. For tables, check out this formatting tip.

   • Edit the HTML source by clicking the Source Code button at the end of the editor's toolbar.

     Note: To keep your help center secure and provide the best experience for your end users, Zendesk limits the HTML you can use in articles. For information, see Allowing unsafe HTML in articles.
3. Review and configure the article settings in the Management section:
   • Under Management permissions, click the drop-down arrow, then select management permissions to determine which agents have editing and publishing rights for this article.
     • Administrators enables only Guide admins to edit and publish the article. This option is selected by default on new articles.
     • Agents and admins enables all agents and admins to edit and publish the article.
     • Editors and Publishers (Enterprise plans only), enables all agents and admins to edit this article but only admins can publish the article. This option appears only if it's been activated.
     • Custom management permission enables specific user segments to edit and publish the article.

     Depending on your account, you might also see an agents and managers option.

     Guide admins can apply any management permissions. Agents with management permissions can apply only the management permissions they belong to. Agents who do not have management permissions on any article will not see this option, and the management permissions will default to admins.

   • Under Owner, verify or select a new owner for the article.
4. Review and configure the article settings in the Placement section:
   • Under Section, click Manage sections, then select a new section and click Ok.

     You can search for or navigate to the section. All of your categories might not appear in the window. To navigate, click the expander arrows to drill down to the section you want.

     

   • Under Author, verify or select a new author for the article.
   • Under Viewing permissions, select one of the following options to determine which users can view this article:
     • Visible to everyone includes anyone who visits your help center and does not require sign in.
     • Only visible to selected user segments select up to 10 user segments from any of the following:
       • Signed-in users includes internal and external users who create an account and sign in to your help center.
       • Agents and admins includes team members only, so that you can create content that is internal-only.
         Note: Light agents are included in this segment. For a list of light agent permissions, see Understanding and setting light agent permissions.
       • Custom user segment enables you to restrict viewing access to specific users based on tags, organizations, or groups by applying user segments. See Creating user segments to restrict access.
   • (Not available on Suite Team) Under Content tags, start typing the content tag you want to add, then select Add as new tag or select the matching content tag, if it exists. See Adding content tags to articles.
   • (Not available on Suite Team) Under Labels, add any labels you want.

     As you start typing, a list of existing labels appears for you to chose from, or you can add a new keyword by selecting Add as a new label or by typing a word and pressing Enter.

     

     For more information about using labels and best practices, see Using labels on help center articles.

     You can add labels to the default language article only and not to translations of the article. You can add labels in multiple languages to the default article.

   • Choose any of the following options:
     • To close the article for comments, deselect Turn on comments.
     • To promote the article in its section, select Promote article.
     • To add an attachment, click Manage attachment in the Attachments section at the bottom of the pane. See Attaching media to articles.

       The file size limit is 20 MB. You can remove an attachment by clicking the x next to it.

   • (Enterprise plans only) Under Template, if you have multiple article templates in your live theme, click the drop-down, then select a template.

     You might have to scroll down to see this option. If you do not select an alternate template, the default article template will be applied.

     

   • Under Attached media, click Manage attached media to attach a downloadable file to the article. See Attaching media to articles.
5. When you are finished working on your article, do one of the following:
   • To save your new article as a draft or work in progress to publish later, click Save.

     Click Preview to view the article in your help center.

   • When you're ready to publish your article, click the drop-down arrow on the Save button, then select Publish.

Tip: For information about how you can display an article in multiple sections, see Displaying an article or section in multiple sections or categories.

Editing articles in the knowledge base

Guide admins can edit any articles. Agents can edit existing articles where they have management permissions. Agent privileges for existing articles vary depending on their management permissions. See the complete list of agent privileges for existing, published articles.

Saving edits for an existing published article as a work in progress is only available on Enterprise plans.

There are some article updates that you can make on multiple articles in bulk. For more information, see Updating knowledge base articles in bulk.

To open an article in edit mode

• In help center, navigate to the article you want to edit, then click Edit article in the top menu bar.

  

• In Knowledge admin, click Manage articles () in the sidebar. Search for the article, then click the title to open it.
• In Knowledge admin, click Arrange content () in the sidebar. Navigate to the article, then click the options menu at the end of the title and select Edit article.