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.
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
- In your help center or Guide, click Add in the top menu bar, then select
Article.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Under Management permissions, click the drop-down arrow, then select
management permissions to determine which agents have editing and publishing rights
for this article.
- 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.
- Under Section, click Manage sections, then select a new section and
click Ok.
- 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.
- To save your new article as a draft or work in progress to publish later, click
Save.
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.
- In your help center, navigate to the article you want to edit, then click Edit
article in the top menu bar.
- In Guide Admin, click the Manage articles (
) icon in the sidebar, search for the article, then click the title to open it.
- In Guide Admin, click the Arrange content (
) icon in the sidebar, navigate to the article, then click the options menu at the end of the title and select Edit article.
51 comments
Ifra Saqlain
Hi Tim Fischer, you can try this, wrap your images inside an anchor tag and add a download button:
Try this and let me know if it solves you query.
Thanks :)
0
Pete Graner
Is it possible for code blocks to have a copy button that will copy the text of the code block and put it on the system clipboard. We have numerous steps for troubleshooting on the command line and our customers are asking for a one click button so the can paste into their command line.
Thanks
0
Ifra Saqlain
Hi Pete Graner,
To add a copy button for code blocks, you can try this:
Copy the given code snippet and paste it to your template where you wanna add code blocks.
The given code is for one code blocks just a demo. you can create more pre tags with your code but every time your copyTextOne() function will not be same name, it should be copyTextTwo(), copyTextThree(), etc..
happy to help :)
Thank You
0
Pete Graner
Hi Ifra Saqlain,
Thanks for the prompt reply. Unfortunately doing that for each code block will be a real pain for 100's of articles. I was hoping for something that could be put in the site theme or some similar method.
Looking at the raw html view it seems the code blocks use the <pre></pre> tags. I was hoping for some something like Zendesk has in the Guide Admin Interface -> Settings ->Search Settings->Crawlers -> Edit crawler on the Meta Tag field. Just a simple button that would copy the text.
0
Ifra Saqlain
Okay, I'll give it a try and let you know soon :)
0
Ani Samajpati
Hi, I am trying to publish this french article (see screenshot). It shows as 'published' but I am unable to view it as a non-logged in user. As you can see the setting is visible to everyone and I don't see any errors in the article settings. Why is the article not visible then? Please help.
0
Arianne Batiles
Hi Ani Samajpati,
I created a ticket on your behalf, and I’ll continue to assist you from there. Kindly check your email for updates. Thank you!
1
Mary Paez
Did you also check the Managed by Setting as well as Visible to property?
1
Jane M Langschied
A few questions:
1. Can 2 people edit articles at the same time?
2. Will there be an alert/message that pops up when multiple people are trying to edit the same article?
3. Will there be an alert/message that pops up when someone clicks on save > publish and there is another person editing that article?
0
Arianne Batiles
Hi Jane M Langschied,
1. Can 2 people edit articles at the same time? Yes but we don't recommend since this can cause conflict.
2. Will there be an alert/message that pops up when multiple people are trying to edit the same article? No
3. Will there be an alert/message that pops up when someone clicks on save > publish and there is another person editing that article? No, but if there's a conflict between users, it's possible that the changes won't be saved (ex. when two users saved changes at the same time).
0
Daniel Lemkau (CCT)
Hello.
When editing a currently published kb article with e.g. old.pdf in it, users will still see version 1 with old.pdf. That is okay.
But how can i manage as the kb editor, that the new kb version 2 with update.pdf is pubished in future and customer just can see the update.pdf also in future?
Currently when i edit the published article and delete the old.pdf, the customer will not see this anymore. And i don´t want that the new pdf is shown now kb version 1 = it should also be shown at the planned publishing date (e.g. 01.11.2023).
Thank you.
0
Dane
Unfortunately, it's not possible. The reason for that is when you attach a new media to the article and you save the changes, it will automatically be part of the published article.
0
Kristi Connolly
Now that the Save and Publish buttons have moved to the bottom of the screen for reasons unknown, Publication Status has completely disappeared, and with it the ability to preview the article. Please bring them back ASAP because I'm flying blind now. I've already had situations where teammates didn't notice that they forgot to publish.
2
Jane M Langschied
Agreed, we use preview regularly so we know what the article looks like before publishing. It is an expected feature of this type of program.
0
Jane M Langschied
Kristi Connolly
I found a "preview" in the bottom left-hand corner.
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2
Kristi Connolly
Jane M Langschied, you're right! Thank you. It's been placed as far away as possible from its original position, shrunk down, renamed to "View", and hidden under a chatbot. I can't think of a single problem that could possibly have been solved by this change.
1
Justin Moore
Nora
I also can no longer see a "Preview" option (either a button or a link) anywhere in the editor for FAQ articles.
This article mentions and shows a "Preview" button, but not in context, so I'm not sure where's supposed to appear.
Edit: I was eventually able to locate the "View" button, and it appears that the UI may have changed since this article was last updated. I'm seeing a "View" button that, when clicked, produces a popup menu that appears to serve the functions of both "View (live)" and "Preview (draft)". However, the button only displays the popup menu if a draft has been saved, and does not appear to signal what its behavior will be in any way before it is clicked on. This makes it unpredictable—not great UI/UX design.
Additionally, when I did eventually locate the "View" button, I was flabbergasted at its location:
Why is this UI element so far away from everything else? It's in the absolute bottom left of the window, along with no other UI elements whatsoever. No wonder I couldn't locate it.
What was the reasoning for placing this UI element in this location?... And could you please move it back to the right side where everything else is?
1
Mike DR
That would show up for unpublished articles at the bottom left:
1
wt Hou
What if my article is 40000 and then I could not create more? how to overcome the limit?
0
Chinh
How can i create Expand/Collapse Effects in Zendesk Guide?
0
Wes Spooner
Is there a way to create an article from a template, or to Copy/Clone an existing article? Ideally there would be a way to have the same starting content in every article, but with the ability to edit it uniquely to the article it's in - essentially Content Blocks won't work because when edited they're updated in every article using it, our use case would edit the block to be unique to each article.
0