How to publish a PDF manual in your Zendesk help center

To publish a PDF manual in your Zendesk help center, open Tomewell, build the saved manual on its Build tab, then click Publish. Tomewell puts the PDF in your help center's media library and shows its address. Link that address from an article with Insert link in the article editor. With Update the copy already published ticked, each new publish keeps the same address, so the link always opens the newest manual.

Before you start

• A saved manual in Tomewell (New manual, add contents, Save). Saving needs a Zendesk admin.
• Publishing needs a Guide admin or an agent who manages help center content.
• The PDF must be 20 MB or smaller, Zendesk's limit for help center files. Larger manuals can still be downloaded.

Steps

1. Open the manual in Tomewell and go to the Build tab.
2. Click Build PDF (or Build N PDFs if you ticked several languages). Tomewell reads the articles as they are right now and lays out the pages in your browser.
3. Read the summary. It shows the page count, articles, images and anything left out, such as an image Zendesk didn't hand over, which prints as a labeled box.
4. Tick Update the copy already published if this manual was published before. The earlier PDF with the same file name gets a new version at the same address.
5. Click Publish. Tomewell shows the PDF's address in your help center.
6. Link it. Open the article where readers should find the manual, select some text, use Insert link in the article editor and paste the address.

Keep the manual current

When articles change, open Tomewell and build again. If the manual includes whole categories or sections, articles added to them since the last build are included automatically. Then publish with Update the copy already published ticked. The address in your article doesn't change, so every link opens the newest manual. Tomewell never changes your articles.

Changes you haven't saved are used in the build, so you can try a new cover or footer before saving it.

What readers get in the PDF

One manual per language

Tick every language you want under Languages. Each becomes its own PDF with translated category and section names. Under Untranslated articles, include them in the default language with a short note, or leave them out. Publish each language's PDF and link it from that language's version of the article.

Add a link next to every article

Tomewell's Theme button snippets can show a link to the full manual on every article page, next to a Save as PDF button. Paste the published address into Theme button before copying the HTML snippet.

What it costs

Tomewell is $79 per month per Zendesk account on Single brand or $149 per month on Multi-brand (every brand's help center), billed monthly by Zendesk with a 14-day free trial and a card required. Every feature is on both plans. Details are in the Tomewell documentation; Zendesk's own steps for files are in Attaching media to articles.