Mastering the Knowledge Base Editor

Introduction to the Article Editor

HelpCanvas includes a powerful rich-text editor for writing and formatting knowledge base articles. The editor is designed for content creators of all skill levels — you do not need to know HTML or Markdown to produce polished, professional articles. At the same time, it gives technical writers full control over formatting and structure.

This guide covers every feature of the editor, from basic text formatting to inserting media, working with code blocks, and optimizing articles for search engines.

Basic Text Formatting

The toolbar at the top of the editor gives you quick access to the most common formatting options:

• Bold (Cmd/Ctrl + B) — Use for important terms, UI element names, and key concepts.
• Italic (Cmd/Ctrl + I) — Use for titles of products, books, and technical terms being introduced for the first time.
• Underline (Cmd/Ctrl + U) — Use sparingly; in web content, underlines are associated with links and can confuse readers.
• Strikethrough — Use to indicate deprecated information that is being replaced.
• Inline code — Use for file paths, command names, variable names, and short code snippets.

Headings and Document Structure

Well-structured articles are easier to scan and better for SEO. Use headings to break your content into logical sections:

• H1: Reserved for the article title. Do not use H1 within the body — it is set automatically from the title field.
• H2: Major sections. Think of these as chapters within the article.
• H3: Subsections within an H2 section.
• H4: Rarely needed. Use only for highly structured content like reference documentation.

A good article typically has 3–7 H2 sections. If you find yourself needing more, consider splitting the article into multiple shorter pieces.

Lists

Lists are one of the most reader-friendly ways to present information in support documentation.

Unordered Lists

Use bullet points when the order of items does not matter and items are roughly equivalent in importance. Examples: a list of features, a list of requirements, a list of options.

Ordered Lists

Use numbered lists for sequential steps where order matters. This is especially important for setup guides, troubleshooting procedures, and configuration walkthroughs. Readers rely on the numbers to track their progress.

Nested Lists

You can create sub-lists by pressing Tab at the start of a list item. Use nesting sparingly — more than two levels deep becomes hard to follow. If you find yourself nesting deeply, restructure with subheadings instead.

Code Blocks

For articles covering technical topics, code blocks are essential. Click the code block button in the toolbar or type three backticks (```) to insert a block. You can specify a language for syntax highlighting:

curl -X POST https://api.helpcanvas.com/v1/tickets \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"subject": "Test ticket", "body": "Hello from the API"}'

Supported languages include JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, PHP, Ruby, Go, Rust, Java, C#, Bash, SQL, YAML, JSON, HTML, CSS, and more.

Tables

Tables are ideal for comparison content, reference data, and configuration options. To insert a table, click the table icon in the toolbar and choose your dimensions. Tables can be expanded by right-clicking on a row or column header to add or delete rows and columns.

Tips for effective tables:

• Keep table headers short and descriptive
• Align numeric columns to the right
• Avoid merging cells if possible — it complicates responsive display on mobile
• If a table has more than 8 columns, consider breaking it into multiple tables or using a list format instead

Images and Media

Screenshots and diagrams significantly improve comprehension for procedural articles. To insert an image, click the image icon in the toolbar or drag and drop an image file directly into the editor. Supported formats are JPEG, PNG, GIF, and WebP. Maximum file size is 5MB per image.

Best practices for images in documentation:

• Use screenshots that show only the relevant part of the UI. Crop out unrelated elements.
• Annotate screenshots with arrows or highlights to draw attention to important elements.
• Always provide descriptive alt text for accessibility and SEO. Alt text should describe what the image shows, not just its file name.
• Avoid embedding text-heavy screenshots when the same information can be conveyed in the article body — text is searchable, images are not.

Links

To insert a link, select the text you want to link, press Cmd/Ctrl + K, and enter the URL. For links to other knowledge base articles, use the article picker (click the book icon next to the URL field) to search and select articles by title. This ensures links stay valid if article slugs change in the future.

Configure external links to open in a new tab so readers do not lose their place in your documentation.

Article Metadata

In the right-hand panel while editing an article, you will find fields for:

• Category: Which knowledge base category this article belongs to.
• Status: Draft, Published, Scheduled, or Archived.
• SEO Title: The title that appears in search engine results. If left blank, the article title is used.
• Meta Description: A 150–160 character summary that appears in search results. Write this as a compelling description to improve click-through rates.
• Featured Image: An image that appears in article previews and social media shares.
• Sort Order: Controls the position of this article within its category listing.

Autosave and Version History

The editor autosaves your work every 30 seconds. If you close the browser by accident, your progress is preserved and you can pick up where you left off. A manual save is still recommended before leaving the page.

Every time you publish an article, a new version is created. You can view version history from the article settings menu and roll back to any previous version if needed. This is particularly useful for collaborative writing where multiple team members make changes over time.

Publishing and Scheduling

When your article is ready, click Publish to make it immediately visible to readers. Alternatively, click the dropdown arrow next to Publish and select Schedule to choose a future date and time for automatic publication.

Scheduled articles are useful for:

• Coordinating documentation releases with product launches
• Publishing during off-peak hours to minimize impact on reader metrics
• Maintaining a content calendar when multiple writers contribute to the knowledge base

Article Analytics

After an article is published, you can track its performance under Knowledge Base > Analytics. Available metrics include:

• Views: Total page views over the selected period.
• Unique visitors: Distinct readers, deduped by session.
• Helpful votes: Number of readers who clicked "Yes, this was helpful".
• Not helpful votes: Readers who indicated the article did not answer their question.
• Helpfulness rate: Percentage of voters who found the article helpful.
• Search terms: What queries visitors used before landing on this article.

Articles with low helpfulness rates are candidates for revision. Check the search terms to understand what readers were looking for and whether the article is meeting that intent.