Writing and publishing articles

Articles are the pages of your knowledge base. You write each one in Markdown, file it in one or more categories, and publish it when it's ready. You can keep working on changes as a draft while the published version stays live. Articles are under Enable → Knowledge → Articles.

Before you start

• Create a knowledge base and at least one category. See Creating a knowledge base.
• You need permission to view and create articles. Publishing, unpublishing and saving translations need permission to change articles, so ask a subscription administrator if you can't see those buttons. See Users, teams, groups and permissions.

The articles list

Go to Enable → Knowledge → Articles. The list shows each article's name, status and visibility. A status of Enabled means the article is published; Disabled means it isn't. Select New to write an article, or select an article to open it.

Writing a new article

1. Select New.
2. On the General tab, enter the Title, an optional Summary and the Body (Markdown). The summary is shown in navigation, search results and the feed.
3. On the Publishing tab, choose the Visibility. Public articles appear on the public site. Private articles are kept off the public site and out of its search.
4. On the Categories tab, tick at least one category. All the categories you tick must belong to the same knowledge base, and that decides which knowledge base the article belongs to.
5. Optionally, on the SEO tab, set the URL, Meta Title and Meta Description. If you leave the URL empty, it's created from the title.
6. Select Save.

The article is saved but not yet published, and it opens so you can carry on.

Writing in Markdown

The Body (Markdown) field uses Markdown, a simple way of formatting text. For example, start a line with ## for a heading or - for a bullet point, wrap words in ** for bold, and write links as [link text](https://example.com).

Publishing an article

An article is only on the public site once it has been published. The Publishing tab tells you where it stands:

• Not published: this article is not on the public site.
• Published: this article is on the public site. If the article's Visibility is Private, the notice adds that it isn't shown on the public site.

To publish, open the article and select Publish, next to the save button. A message confirms Article published.

To take an article down, select Unpublish and confirm Take this article off the public site? Its content and translations are kept, and you can publish it again later.

You can also publish or unpublish several articles at once by selecting them on the list and using the Enable or Disable bulk action.

Editing an article

Once an article has been saved, the main save button reads Publish now, and its menu offers Publish and continue and Save Draft.

• Publish now saves your changes as the article's current content. If the article is already published, readers see the changes straight away. If it isn't published yet, your changes are saved but the article stays off the site until you select Publish.
• Save Draft keeps your changes as a draft without changing what readers see. When the draft is ready, select Publish changes to publish it. For an article that isn't published yet, select Publish.

Languages and translations

If your knowledge base publishes more than one language, each saved article has a Translations tab. It shows the source content, which can't be changed there, and a translation for each of your other languages.

1. Open the article and go to the Translations tab.
2. Choose a language, and fill in or correct the translation. To have AI draft them for you, select Create AI translations and confirm.
3. Select Save translations.

AI translations are added for review. Until you've checked and saved each one, the tab shows Waiting for review with the languages still to do. A translation counts as ready once it's complete and saved.

An article can only be published when every translation is ready. If any are still waiting, publishing is refused with a message listing the languages to finish.

On the public site, readers choose their language. If an article hasn't been translated into their language, they see the source-language version.

Troubleshooting

• "The article was not published: …" The message gives the reason, for example translations that still need review.
• "Choose at least one category." Tick a category on the Categories tab.
• "Choose categories from a single knowledge base." Untick the categories that belong to a different knowledge base. An article can't be moved to another knowledge base once saved.
• "Another article in this knowledge base already uses the URL …" Change the URL on the SEO tab.
• My article isn't on the public site. Check the Publishing tab, the article's Visibility, and that the knowledge base is enabled and its domain verified. See Attaching a domain to a knowledge base.
• I can't see Publish. You may not have permission to change articles, or the article hasn't been saved yet.

To move many articles in or out at once, see Importing and exporting a knowledge base.