More flexible knowledge base design and layout, including custom HTML/CSS

[Snaedis]

There have been a number of different posts in the Community which are about the same core need (customizing the styling of the knowledge base), but many have been marked as "solved" or "delivered" because of options that get you part-way there. I'm consolidating those into this post so we can more easily track this need. This post should not be marked as solved or delivered until a knowledge base can be fully customized in layout and styling.

I've spoken with many customers who still want more flexibility in knowledge base styling, including: 

• Custom layouts for index pages and articles
• More fonts and styling options to better align KB with the rest of a business's website

For those of us who are working to improve the HubSpot product, it's incredibly helpful to have example use cases from our customers, and the posts here on the Community play an important role in our prioritization process. 

Giving you more flexibility in KB styling is something we'd like to do, and when we have the bandwidth to dig into this project we'll look to you all for guidance on how to best support your needs. So if customization is important to you, please add your voice to this thread!

For reference, I'm listing here the other posts which are related to this topic: 

• More formatting options for Service Hub knowledge base (156 upvotes as of Sept 7, 2020), by @matthew_stibbe 
• Knowledge base styles (68 upvotes as of Sept 7, 2020), by @radko 
• See all articles in a category while viewing an article (3 upvotes as of Sept 7, 2020), by @LiamW 
• Knowledge base editor numbered list can't be continued after importing image (12 upvotes as of Sept 7, 2020), by @zachallen 
• HTML editor in knowledge base? (6 upvotes as of Sept 7, 2020), by @MartinTexada 

[matthew_stibbe]

It would be very helpful to be able to change the fonts on the Knowledge Base and also to be able to edit the number of items (currently fixed at two) listed under each subheading. 

[atma]

Need the ability to fully customise the appearance of the Knowledge Base by editing the CSS.

Also it would be great to have an option to install a theme (either off-the-shelf from HubSpot partners, or custom-designed).

[atma]

Categories appear by default in alphabetical order. That's not good. Absolutely need to be able to choose the order and layout of categories.

Main categories appear but sub-categories do not. That's ok I guess. But why show only two articles? Need to show at least three.

The design is very bland. Need some styling options like big buttons for categories, and the option to upload custom graphics.

The font size is too small, needs to be increased.

Need to show popular support articles in a section.

There is too much blank space. Need to compact the design somewhat.

[MaApruveFintech]

We are looking for just even a simple way to add a "Submit a Request" button in the header, but we have no way to implement it.

[gloreal]

I agree. We'd love to be able to align our Knowledge Base more closely with our agency's branding by using custom fonts etc. We were quite surprised to find out that this is not an option.

[jkearns]

I do not understand why we do not have full editing capabilies for KB articles as for all other HS pages.

[zefazef]

Hi, i've the same need as @MaApruveFintech ! 

[Brycelbrewer]

I agree with atma, especially on potentially showing sub categories, at least three articles under a heading (2 just feels awkward), and changing the order.

A big thing for me would to also be able to create "sections" that the categories reside in.  For example, I would like to have a "Product" section that has information about our specific products listed in the categories.  I would like a "Media" section with video, webinars, etc.  Then a "General" section with overall information about how to contact us and common questions we receive.

[daisylepage]

This should be available as we want everything to be consistent with our website. The fonts are very different.

[kporteus]

At the moment it looks like this can only be times new roman? I'd love to be able to match the font to the headers and our other marketing collateral. 

[Mini]

This is a must! Upvoted!

[DanaEpp]

Absolutely agree with this. Its very limiting to not be able to:

• Change fonts to match branding of website that is also in HubSpot. The templates in the Design Tool should be reflected in the KB.
• Showing only 2 articles in each category on the homepage for the KB is a waste of space, and doesn't match with how all other competitor KBs look/feel. It would be nice if that was increased to 5 at the bare minimum.
• Would also be nice if there was a nice code snippet view so we can show examples etc. Even just a raw <pre> would be sufficient.
• It would be helpful if we could have callouts / tables to emphasis notes/warnings etc.

Please consider this request. It's sad that this is table stakes with competitors products like Zendesk, and its almost been a year and this still isn't available.

[DanaEpp]

I'd rather that this follow the "Design Tool" methodology, and use the built in templating HubSpot already offers for the rest of the system. This ways themes can be extended, CSS matched, and efforts lessened.

The request itself is definitely a nice ask. Any way we can get it, we need to be able to modify stuff. I hate that we have a serif font for the main text, when we use a sans serif (Roboto) font everywhere else on our site.

[phylu]

Especially having a Serif Font as main font does make the page look really strange.

[Rianne]

I agree with this whole-heartedly, we need to be able to use other fonts than Times New Roman so we can match the Knowledge Base to for example our website. I would even be happy with any extra fonts at this point. Only providing Times New Roman seems very restrictive.

[cpalenshus]

I can't believe we even need to request this!?!

Why is this done differently than email and page customization?

[cpalenshus]

Totally agree with atma and Brycelbrewer.

I can't believe how limited the formatting is. I want to display subcategories, not just the first two articles in a category. If I did want to display articles, I would want to select which specific articles are featured.

[joce_]

I noticed that the available options when an image is added to a KB article is either "Options" or "Replace". There's no clear way to remove an image at the moment, unlike with videos. Would be great if we could also edit the source code of KB articles like blog posts and landing pages! 

[FINBOURNE-TW]

Good news - been looking for this feature and suprised when I couldn't find it