When you have installed Articles PDF Export, it displays as an icon in the sidebar of the Zendesk Agent Dashboard.
In this Article
Displaying the Articles PDF Export App in the Zendesk Agent Dashboard
Selecting the Articles to Export
Exporting the Selected Articles
Configuring the Cover Page
Frequently Asked Questions
Displaying the Articles PDF Export App in the Zendesk Agent Dashboard
- Login to Zendesk as a user who has access to the Articles PDF Export app.
- On the left-hand side of the Zendesk Agent Dashboard, click the Articles PDF Export icon in the sidebar.
The Export Help Center Articles to PDF screen displays. The following is an example of the screen when Articles PDF Export is not under the trial.
Selecting the Articles to Export
Click Export Articles.
Select the Help Center and Language.
Then make your selections for the articles you want to export, When selecting articles, you can use one or more of the following:
-
Search for text in the articles.
If you enter more than one word it finds articles that include each of the words.
You can search for an exact phrase by enclosing the search text in quotes ("").
- Select one of more Categories
- Select one of more Sections
The relevant articles display as you make your selections.
You can open an article in your Help Center directly from the search results. If you open an article and make any changes to it, it might take a few minutes until the reindex is completed and the update shows when the article is exported.
Click to select individual articles
Or
Select all the articles shown on the page by clicking the checkbox next to the Search results or click Select All.
Exporting the Selected Articles
Once you have selected the articles, click Export.
Depending on the size of the export this may initially show as "Pending".
When the Export has finished, click Download to download the file to your Windows Downloads directory.
The articles are included in the PDF in the order in which they displayed in the Search.
Configuring the Cover Page
Initially there is no Cover Page added to your PDF export.
To configure this, from the Export Help Center Articles to PDF, click Configure Style.
The Customize your PDF style displays.
Enter the Cover Page Title, Cover Page Subtitle, Cover Page Footer and upload the Cover Page Logo file, then click Save.
The following is an example of how the cover page is included in your PDF Exports.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Help Center, Language, Categories, and Sections dropdowns are blank for one of my agents, but Search still works. How do I fix it?
This is almost always a Zendesk permissions issue rather than a problem with the app, and it typically affects only some agents while working fine for others.
The Help Center dropdown is populated by asking Zendesk for the list of brands using the signed-in agent's own Zendesk permissions. Per Zendesk's rules, "agents without the 'assign tickets to any brand' permission can only list brands they are members of" (see Zendesk's Brands API documentation). So if an agent's role is restricted to a single brand or group, Zendesk returns few or no brands and the Help Center dropdown shows up blank. Because the Language, Categories, and Sections lists only populate after a Help Center is selected, they appear blank as well.
Search is unaffected because it does not rely on the individual agent's brand permissions, which is why an affected agent can still search and open articles across brands.
To resolve it, give the affected agent's role visibility of the brands, using either approach:
- Enable the "assign tickets to any brand" permission on their custom role, in Admin Center > People > Roles. See Creating custom roles and assigning agents.
- Or keep the role restricted and make the agent a member of the specific brands they need to export from. See Multibrand: Restricting agents to specific brands.
After updating the permissions, have the agent reload the app and the dropdowns should populate.
It worked for this agent before and suddenly stopped. What changed?
In most cases the agent's Zendesk role or brand access was changed. Check whether their permissions were modified and restore the brand access described above. Note that reauthorizing the app on its own will not fix this, because it cannot grant a Zendesk permission the agent's role does not have.