Transitioning to the new article editor




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Note: The transition from the legacy article editor to the new
article editor will be complete on March 31, 2026. After this date, the legacy
editor will no longer be available. See the transition timeline below for more information.
In
May 2025, Zendesk introduced a new, enhanced article editor that provides an intuitive
and enriched content creation experience, designed to streamline content creation and
boost audience engagement. This updated article editor has a phased transition period
for new and existing articles, and provides an option for you to continue using the
legacy editor until the end of the transition.
With the new article editor, you have access to enhanced editing tools, source code
improvements, and advanced article components, such as HTML blocks, summaries, and more.
In addition, you can take advantage of newly released features, such as AI article translation if you have the Copilot add-on, that
are only available with the new article editor.
To ease your transition to the new article editor, it's important to understand the
transition timeline, reason for the transition, and how to troubleshoot issues you may
encounter.
This article includes the following topics:
Comparing the legacy editor and new editor frameworks
About the new article editor features
Understanding the timeline for transitioning to the new article editor
Switching between article editors
What to expect after the transition ends
Troubleshooting issues when transitioning to the new article editor




Comparing the legacy editor and new editor frameworks

The legacy editor was built using an HTML approach, which worked much like an
enhanced text box in your browser. Whenever you formatted text, these actions
directly manipulated the content as HTML. Behind the scenes, typing or formatting
was translated into messy (or sometimes inconsistent) markup, heavily influenced by
your browser and whatever content was pasted in the editor.
The new editor takes a structured data model approach. This means that it translates
content into a structured data model, where each piece of content is an object with
defined properties, attributes and relationships. This model separates content from
data attributes, which is what provides the new editor with so much of its
flexibility, security, and ability to integrate with advanced features and tools.
As with any migration to a more advanced platform, there are transition issues and
workflow modifications that must be addressed and resolved. Because the legacy
editor was built on HTML instead of the more powerful objects, you could customize
and add any HTML you wanted in the article editor. As you transition your articles
to the new editor, you may find that some of this code is no longer supported, and
as a result, your content is wrapped in an HTML block for its protection. Or, you
may find that you now are working with tables, images, or other article editing
elements in a different way.
This article will help you plan for, identify, and troubleshoot transition issues
that you may be experiencing. To begin, take time to understand the transition plan
and timeline, and how much time you have to migrate your existing articles and
prepare for working in the new article editor.



About the new article editor features

The new article editor is built on a flexible, powerful platform. When you transition
to the new article editor, you'll be able to use and benefit from the following
enhancements:
Enhanced article editing
tools
Source code
improvements
New article
components




Enhanced article editing tools

The article editor includes new editing tools designed to streamline and enhance
your content creation process. You can access the new article editing tools by
creating or editing an article in your help
center, then using the new article editor toolbar to access the
tools.
The following image shows the location of new or updated tools on the new article
editor toolbar.

To learn more about the article editing tools, see the following articles:
Help center editor toolbar
reference
Adding and formatting tables in help
center articles
Inserting images in articles and
content blocks
Formatting text with
Markdown





Source code improvements

You can click the HTML icon ( ) on the article editor toolbar to access
the source code of your article.
Additional source code improvements in this release include:

HTML blocks - Previously available only in content blocks, HTML
blocks are available in the article editor as an insertable article
component. See Article
components below.

Cleaner code when using content blocks - Previously, when you
placed your cursor above a content block in the article editor, you
could only see the HTML code for the text above the 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. This issue is now
resolved, and you can now view the article source code both above and
below the content block, regardless of your cursor position. Content
blocks are identified with an ID number in article source code. With
this improvement, you can now see the source code both above and
below the content block ID in the HTML view.







Article components

You can access the following functions from the Article components drop-down menu
( ) on the new article editor toolbar:

Embed: If your video is hosted on one of the supported hosting
services, you can embed the file directly from the new article editor
toolbar. See Inserting videos and embedded files
in articles and content blocks.

HTML blocks: You can use HTML blocks to quickly access and edit
complex HTML code in your articles. HTML blocks let you work with blocks
of code that would otherwise not be editable within the article editor,
and to display them in a safe manner within your help center. See Using HTML blocks to edit code in
content blocks.

Horizontal line: You can insert a horizontal line in the article
editor to visually separate groups of content with a divider. See the
Help center editor toolbar
reference.

Article summaries: You can insert the article summary component
into your help center article to display a concise description of the
article content in a shaded box at the top of your article. If you have
the Copilot add-on, you can
generate the article summary using AI. Otherwise, you can type your
summary in the text box. See Adding article summaries to knowledge
base articles.






Understanding the timeline for transitioning to the new article editor

The transition from the legacy article editor to the new article editor has four
phases, from May 22, 2025 through mid-year 2026. Throughout the phased transition, new and existing
articles will gradually move from the legacy editor to the new article editor.
Once an article has been migrated to the new article editor, it will no longer open
or be editable in the legacy editor. This applies to restoring previous versions as well. When you restore a
previous version of an article that was created in the legacy article editor, the
article will still open in the new article editor. You can't restore the legacy
article editor, even if the article you're restoring was edited and published using
the legacy editor.

View full size

Refer to the following table for a summary of the transition information shown in the
diagram above.










Period
Article type


Existing articles
New articles





New Editor GA Q2 2025

Open in the legacy editor. You can save in the new editor
and switch back as needed.

Open in the new editor. You can revert to the legacy editor
if needed.




Transitionary period Nov 3, 2025 - Jan 11,
2026

Open in the new editor. You can
switch between the new and legacy editors until you click
Save and migrate. After migrating, the article only opens in
the new editor.




New articles - New editor only Jan 11, 2026 - Mar
31, 2026

Open in the new editor. You can switch between the new and
legacy editors until you click Save and migrate. After
migrating, only the new editor is available.

Open in the new editor without the option to revert to the
legacy editor.



Legacy editor sunset Q2 2026 Transition complete Mar
31, 2026

Open in the new editor without the
option to revert to the legacy editor.








Switching between article editors

As long as you're in the phase where articles can be downgraded from the new article
editor to the legacy article editor, you can switch as much as you like before you
save and migrate the article. The article is migrated to the new article editor only
after you select Save and migrate from the Save menu in the lower right side of the
editor.
To verify which editor an article is using, refer to the indicator that appears on
the article editor header. You can also click this indicator to open an information
message with a link to switch to the legacy editor. The example below displays an
article in the new editor.


To switch between article editors
In your help center, navigate to the article you want to edit, then click
Edit article in the top menu bar. All articles (new and
existing) open in the new editor.

If the article doesn't appear as expected and you want to switch back to
the legacy editor, then in the banner that appears at the top of Article
settings, click Switch to legacy editor and continue editing in the
legacy editor. Otherwise, continue to the next step.
Note: The option to switch to the legacy editor is only
available for new articles until January 11, 2026 and for existing
articles until March 31, 2026.

To save the article in the new editor, click Save and migrate in the
article footer.
Review the information provided in the Migrate article modal, then take the
following actions:
Click Preview article to view the article in a new browser
tab.
Click Save and migrate to permanently migrate the article to
the new editor.
Note: Once you save an article
from the legacy editor to the new article editor, the article is
migrated. If you attempt to view a migrated article in the
legacy editor, you may experience display issues or
compatibility problems, as the legacy editor is not built to
understand the new format.









What to expect after the transition ends

The transition to the new article editor will be complete on March 31, 2026. After
this date, you'll still have access to all of your articles, but they'll open in the
new editor without an option to revert to the legacy editor. All references to the
legacy editor will be removed, and the new article editor will be the only available
article editor.
If you haven't migrated your existing articles to the new editor by the end of the
transition, you'll still have access to those articles but will only be able to
view and edit them in the new article editor.
Because HTML blocks protect custom code incompatibilities between the legacy and new
editor, your articles should appear correctly when published. However, custom code
that is incompatible with the new editor will be wrapped in an HTML block to protect
the code. To learn more about how to work with HTML blocks in the new editor, see Using HTML blocks to edit code in content blocks and
Troubleshooting issues with HTML blocks in the
new article editor.



Troubleshooting issues when transitioning to the new article editor

If you experience issues with your help center content that is moved from the legacy
editor to the new article editor, refer to the following Help and FAQs articles:
Troubleshooting formatting issues in the
new article editor
Troubleshooting issues with links in the
new article editor
Troubleshooting issues with tables in the
new article editor
Troubleshooting issues with HTML blocks
in the new article editor
Troubleshooting issues with images and
videos in the new article editor




