Using Find and Replace

In the Articles page, you can use the Find and Replace to search for a word or phrase and replace it. This allows you to run a bulk change across all or selected articles in your Zendesk Help Center and there are a variety of ways in which you run this. The Find and Replace can be used to update text in the article title, content and links.

Find and Replace also offers the function to Replace Step by Step which allows you to check any changes before making them. 

You can also use Find without Replacing to first display what was found so you can check that you have the Find criteria correctly set before making any changes. 

Summary of Using Find and Replace

The following is a summary of using Find and Replace. These steps are detailed below.

1. If required, in the Articles page, select or apply filters for the articles to apply the change to. If no articles are selected or filtered, the Find and Replace will be run on all articles.
2. Click Find and Replace.
3. Enter the word or phrase you want to Find.
4. Enter the word or phrase you want to Replace with.
5. Checkmark if you want to Unpublish changed articles in Zendesk.
6. Make any selections such as Match Case, Match Whole Words Only.
7. By default, the Find and Replace is set to Replace in Text.
   Or
   You can change this to select one of the options that runs the Find and Replace on the HTML code:
   
   You should only use the options that change the HTML if you are familiar with HTML code. 
   
   You can select one of the following:
    
   Replace in HTML Links
   Replace in HTML class property
   Replace in HTML style property
   
8. Make your selection for Replace All, Find without Replacing or Replace Step by Step
   
   To make your changes without further checking, click Replace All.
   When using  Replace All, this automatically saves the changes and pushes all changes to the Zendesk Help Center.
   
   Options for Replace in HTML Code
   If you have selected to find and replace in the HTML code, the only option you can select is Replace All
   
   Options for Replace in Text
   If you have selected Replace in Text, you have the following options:
   
   Click Replace All.
   or
   Click Find without Replacing which finds results in a similar way to the Search function and you can use this to check what you are searching for.
   or
   Click Replace Step by Step which displays a Preview of each article in which the search text is found and gives you the option of what to replace. In the Preview, you can also make other changes to text using the Editor.

Selecting which Articles to Apply a Change to

• You can run Find and Replace on all articles.
• You can also pre-select the articles in the Articles page that you want to run the Find and Replace on. You can filter or search for the articles, and/or select the articles.
  Refer to Using the Column Filters in Articles, Links and Media, Searching for Articles, Links and Media and Selecting Articles, Links or Media.

In Find and Replace, the options for Search in show what the Find and Replace will be searching in. The following example is where articles have been selected in the Articles page.

The following example is where filter(s) have been applied to the Articles page.

Selections for Match Case and Match Whole Words Only

• You can checkmark Match Case to ensure that the Find only locates the text in the case you enter, and the Replace changes this to the case in which you enter the text.
• You can checkmark Match Whole Words Only to ensure that the Find only locates the exact whole words or phrases.

Find and Replace in HTML

You can also use Find and Replace to change the HTML code of the relevant articles. You can use this to make changes across the entire Zendesk Help Center such as:

• Find and change headings, such as replacing <h1> with <h2>.
• Find text in the URL for links and replace it with other text.
• Find a CSS class and replace it with another class. 
• Find a text in the  'style' properties and replace it with other text, such as changing a font color. 

You can select one of the following:

• Replace in HTML Links
• Replace in HTML class property
• Replace in HTML style property

Unpublish Changed Articles

Before making changes, you can checkmark Unpublish Changed Articles. This option allows you to review the changes in Zendesk before making the articles available. When this option is selected, all articles changed by Find and Replace will be automatically set as "Unpublished" in Zendesk and show as "Draft" articles. These articles will not be available to users and you need to publish them separately in Zendesk.

Find without Replacing

When you have made your selections, clicking Find without Replacing runs the search and displays the results in the same way as searching in the Articles page. You can click on a row to display the Article View for that article in the same way with the search text displays in yellow highlight (refer to Article View). This gives you the chance to check what you are finding before replacing.

Replace Step by Step

You can use the Replace Step by Step to preview the articles and check the changes before they are made. This also allows you to select which of the articles you want to change, what instances of the text in an article you want to change, and you also have control over what the text is being changed to in the Replace. 

Replace Step by Step is only available when using Replace in Text.

1. Enter the Find and Replace with text and make your selections for Match Case, Match Whole Words Only, and Unpublish Changed Articles.
2. Click Replace Step by Step.
   
   A list of the articles that have been found that contain the Find text displays on the left-hand side.
3. Click any of the articles to select which one you want to display in the Editor and confirm the change(s) in.
   
   In the article content, the Find text displays with a highlight. The first instance of the Find text displays with a blue highlight and any other instances display with a grey highlight.
   
   The Find and Replace pop-up displays on the right-hand side.
   
4. In the Find and Replace pop-up you can do the following:
   
   Click Replace All to replace all the instances in that article.
   Click Replace to replace the instance currently displayed with the blue highlight.
   Click Find to skip the current highlight and find the next instance of the find text.
   Change the Replace text for one or more of the changes and click Replace or Replace All.
   Change the Preferences such as  Match Case.
   
5. When you have made the changes to that article, click Save and Push to Zendesk.
6. You can then select another article from the list on the left-hand side and make changes to that article.