As someone managing a knowledge base, the last thing you want is to spend a lot of time authoring and playing around with formatting, just to get your article perfect. That’s why having settings and the tools that allow you to write quickly and easily go a long way.
In early July 2025, Zendesk finished the rollout of their new knowledge editor. With this release, Zendesk introduced new features for authors. In this article, we will explore the new editor, and why the recent updates make authoring that much easier.
What’s New in the New Version of Zendesk Knowledge Editor?
Here’s how Zendesk explained the four main updates in its product release announcement:
- New editing tools – New image editing tools (including text-wrapping around images), a new table editor, and drag-and-drop functionality for content elements.
- Source code improvements – Cleaner code when using Zendesk content blocks. You can now view the article source code above and below the content block, regardless of where your cursor is positioned in the article.
- Article components – You can now insert components including HTML blocks, horizontal lines, and AI-powered article summaries into your articles.
- Article translation (EAP) – You can easily translate content directly from the editor across all languages.
Let’s explore each of these, focusing on why these updates make the authoring experience that much better:
What Editing Tools Are Updated?
With the new knowledge editor, some new authoring settings have been introduced, but there are also others that have simply been updated.
These updates focus on adding more flexibility and better options when it comes to formatting your articles around key elements.
Here’s what’s changed:
- Updated formatting selector – Select the formatting that you want to apply to the text (bold, underline, italic, or block quote) from a single dropdown. This cleans up the toolbar overall and keeps formatting options in one place.
- A new table editor – Inserting tables into Zendesk help center articles has always been a bit…less than ideal. With an updated table editor, there is more flexibility, and options when it comes to getting your tables to fit exactly how you’d like them to within your articles. This will save time in trying to get your table just right.
- New image editing tools – Wrapping text, alignment, image resizing, and alt text just got a refresh. Once you insert an image into your article, you can use the updated editor to tackle all of these options in one place.
- Markdown is now fully available – Nothing says speed like never having to take your hands off the keyboard. In the new knowledge editor Markdown commands are automatically supported by your article editor. You can enter Markdown comments to format your content, or you can use the format toolbar to add rich content.
These options give a fresh feel to the toolbar and editing process, while opening up room for more flexibility while editing. This will greatly improve the flow, and speed of writing new articles.
Source Code Improvements
With updates to the editor, come updates to how you can also interact with the source code of your article as well. Here, the new knowledge editor makes source code cleaner, and introduces HTML:
- HTML blocks were previously available only in content blocks, and are now available in the article editor as an insertable article component.
- Cleaner code when using content blocks – You used to only be able to see the HTML code for the text above a content block. To see the code below the content block, you had to go back into the editor and place your cursor below the content block. It was a minor thing, but frustrating when you’re a knowledge manager or team lead creating or editing Zendesk articles all day, every day.
Fortunately, this issue is fixed now. You can now view the source code both above and below the content block, regardless of your cursor position.
Each content block is identified with an ID number in the source code.
Updates to Article Components
With the toolbar being fully updated, that means that some options have been consolidated in the menu and updated for a better feel.
Along with the previous changes, there have also been a handful of updates to the article components, including what you can add from the menu:
- Embeds – You can now fully embed videos and material directly from the new toolbar, making it easier to create knowledge articles that are dynamic and engage readers in a variety of ways.
- HTML blocks – You can use HTML blocks to quickly access and edit complex HTML code in your articles. This makes it much easier to add more complex elements directly in the editor.
- Horizontal Lines – When you’re writing a long article, sometimes you need a handy way to break up the text. Zendesk’s knowledge editor allows you to insert a horizontal line to visually break up text.
- Article summaries – You can insert the article summary component into your help center article to display a concise description of the article content at the top of your article. If you’re using the Zendesk Copilot add-on, you can generate the article summary using AI. Otherwise, you can write the summary manually.
Introducing AI Powered Translation
This is a big one for multilingual knowledge bases. You can now use the Zendesk Copilot to use AI, and translate articles directly within the article editor.
This allows you to manage languages and translations without leaving the editor, creating a more accessible way to interact with multiple language options. Though, it does come with some prerequisites:
- You need to have the Zendesk Copilot add-on.
- You need to have multiple languages enabled for your knowledge base.
While this is a huge addition for native translation in the Zendesk editor, this still comes with its limitations as the translation is still one to one with the article itself.
What if you don’t have access to the Copilot add-on or need to bulk translate your articles?
This is where the Help Center Translate for Zendesk app comes in.
It’s significantly cheaper than adding Zendesk’s AI add-on, and it enables you to translate articles in bulk while keeping the Zendesk article formatting consistent.
You can even use your own glossary to ensure consistency across translations. This gives you the control you need to ensure content accuracy at scale.
While not a massive change to the core process of writing an article, these features offer a new flow, more ease of authoring that helps support efficiency, and a smoother all around writing process.
With all of these updates, it’s also easy to overlook one major update that can impact other areas of knowledge management as well.
One Stand-out Feature We Love
One specific use case for using the new Markdown update is writing for AI digestibility.
While it might seem small, being able to write directly in Markdown in the editor allows you to ensure that LLMs are able to parse the content more easily than before.
Markdown provides a clean, structured format that helps AI distinguish between sections, lists, emphasis, and other formatting elements—making it easier to extract meaning and respond accurately.
To make the most of this, use Markdown to create consistent heading levels, bullet points, and clear labels, which help large language models recognize the intent and hierarchy of the information.
How Can You Access the New Zendesk Knowledge Editor?
The great news is that you already have access to the new editor!
Zendesk has outlined their transition plan to the new editor, and how they will roll out the changes to the new editor in phases.
Here is an overview of the phases:
- Phase 1 – (Q2, 2025) General availability with the option to use the new editor, or revert back to the old editor. By default, new articles will open the new editor, and existing articles will open in the legacy editor.
- Phase 2 – (Q3, 2025) Both new and existing articles will open in the new editor with the option to revert to the legacy editor.
- Phase 3 – (Q4, 2025) New articles will be on the new editor with no option to revert. Existing articles will be on the new editor by default with the option to revert.
- Phase 4 – (Q1, 2026) All articles, new and existing, will be on the new editor without the option to revert.
This is a general overview of what you can expect in the move, and should allow for plenty of time for the legacy editor die-hards to hold out for as long as possible.
If you’d like to try out the new editor, you can jump right in and give it a go by creating a new article, or updating an existing one.
Limitations in the New Editor
While these are some great updates that make authoring more efficient, they still present some limitations when it comes to overall article management, and there are some features we’d love to see in the future.
Bulk translation (or updates) of articles
When introducing multilingual support, you can use the new AI translation to update all articles into the languages you need. Which is great when you have a small number of articles. When you have a large volume of articles, bulk translation will be key.
That’s why Swifteq’s Help Center Translate app for Zendesk is still an incredible choice when it comes to article translation and maintenance.
Lack of keyboard shortcuts
These updates are great for those writing articles to have more flexibility in formatting and managing content blocks.
While there are keyboard shortcuts for the knowledge editor, there is still a piece missing when it comes to simplicity and speed in the shortcuts.
In the future, we’d still love to see more options that allow for these content block additions and edits without the need to take hands off of the keyboard allowing for settings directly in the editor.
Public Markdown availability options
It is amazing that you can now write full articles in markdown directly in the editor. As a next evolution of that, we’d love to see an option where Markdown is made publicly available.
Why? With the new way that content is being indexed for Large Language Models (LLMs), Markdown allows content to be more easily accessible models, making your Help Center more accessible to customers.
Manage Your Zendesk Help Center with Ease
With the improvements implemented in the new Zendesk Knowledge Editor, there will be a lot more flexibility when it comes to getting articles crisp and published.
Overall in the future, we would love to see more full options when it comes to bulk management of knowledge across the board.
Until then, Swifteq’s Help Center Manager remains the best way to update, monitor, and manage your Zendesk Help Center.
Start your 14-day free trial or ask for a demo today!
Written by Neal Travis
Curious learner and builder of customer experiences in scale-ups. Neal is the Head of Customer Experience at the Academy to Innovate HR (AIHR) and Host of Growth Support.
