Ferndesk
Customization

How to customize your help center

Customize your help center's branding, navigation, and features from the customization interface. All changes preview in real-time before you save.

Admin or owner access is required to customize your help center. Access it from Dashboard > Help Center > Customize.

Branding

Control your help center's visual identity:

  • Logo: Separate logos for light and dark modes

    • Light mode: Logo displayed when users view your help center in light mode, or when the color scheme is set to Light

    • Dark mode: Logo displayed in dark mode (optional). If you don't upload a dark logo, your light mode logo is used instead

  • Logo Text: Add text next to your logo

  • Favicon: Set the browser tab icon (16x16px)

  • Primary Color: Main color for links and buttons

  • Complementary Color: Secondary accent color

  • Color Scheme: Choose System (auto), Light, or Dark mode

Both logos use the recommended 512x512px size. You can upload just a light mode logo if you want the same logo to appear in all themes, or add a separate dark mode logo for optimized visibility in dark environments.

Learn how to use custom fonts

Configure the top section of your help center:

  • Header Title: Main text at the top of your help center

  • Header Subtitle: Supporting text below the title

  • Show Trending Articles: Display popular articles in the header

Add custom links to your help center. Each area supports up to 3 links:

  • Header Links: Navigation in the top bar

  • Footer Links: Navigation at the bottom

  • Sidebar Links: Custom links with icons in the sidebar

For each link, specify the label, URL, and optional icon. Drag to reorder.

Powered by

Control whether the Ferndesk credit link appears in your help center footer.

  • Show powered by link: Toggle on to display a small "Powered by Ferndesk" link in the footer

New help centers have this enabled by default. Turn it off if you prefer a completely unbranded footer.

Contact

Configure how users reach your support team from the help center. When enabled, a Contact button appears in the header and mobile menu. Clicking it opens a native contact panel with a message form.

Contact form

The hosted contact panel collects:

  • Your name

  • Your email

  • Subject

  • A message body

Visitors can attach images using the Attach images button. After submission, the form sends the email to your configured Contact provider.

AI handoff behavior

Choose when the AI assistant offers a route to your team. Under AI handoff behavior, select AI decides, Always visible, or Off. See AI escalation and handoff behavior for how each option affects the help center experience.

Enable Draft a handoff summary to have the AI generate a summary of the conversation before handoff.

Contact appearance

Customize the contact button and panel:

  • Contact title: Heading in the contact panel

  • Contact description: Brief explanation shown in the panel

  • CTA text: Button label in the help center header

AI Answers

Enable AI-powered assistance in your help center. When enabled, users can ask questions in natural language and get instant answers from your knowledge base with citations.

Requires at least one published article to function.

AI answers work independently from your widget AI settings. Configure each separately.

Language

Set the default language for UI elements, search prompts, and AI assistant greetings. Available options: English, French, Spanish, and German.

This affects the interface only, not article content. Articles display in the language they were written in.

SEO

Optimize your help center for search engines and social sharing:

  • Page Title: Browser tab and search result title (50-60 characters recommended)

  • Meta Description: Search result description (160 character limit shown)

  • SEO Image: Social sharing preview image (1200x630px recommended)

Custom Domain

Connect a subdomain (like help.yourcompany.com) to your help center. You'll configure a CNAME record pointing to cname.ferndesk.cloud. Status shows pending, active, or error states.

Only subdomains are supported. Apex domains (yourcompany.com) cannot be used. DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to propagate.

For detailed setup instructions, see Connect a custom domain.

Advanced Settings

Inject custom code into your help center:

  • Head Code: Add scripts, stylesheets, or meta tags to the <head> section

  • Body Code: Add scripts or HTML to the <body> section

Custom code is not available while trialing. Upgrade to a paid plan to access custom head code and body code features.

Redirects

Create URL redirects to preserve links when restructuring content. Specify the old path (From) and new destination (To). Both paths must start with /.

For step-by-step instructions on adding and managing redirects, see Manage help center redirects.

Saving Changes

Click Save in the top-right corner to apply all changes immediately. You can return anytime to make adjustments.

Changes take effect immediately after saving. Visit your live help center to see how customizations appear to users.

Common Issues

Logo appears pixelated

Cause: Your uploaded image is smaller than the recommended size, so Ferndesk scales it up and it looks blurry.

Fix: Use a higher resolution image. Recommended: 512x512px for the logo and 16x16px for the favicon.

Custom domain shows error

Cause: The CNAME record is missing, points to the wrong target, or DNS is still propagating.

Fix: Verify your CNAME record points to cname.ferndesk.cloud. DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to propagate.

AI assistant says "couldn't find information"

Cause: The AI assistant only searches published articles. If no published articles match the question, the AI cannot generate an answer.

Fix: Publish at least one article. The AI does not use drafts or unpublished changes.

Contact button validation error

Cause: The email address format is invalid, or the URL is missing https://.

Fix: Check the email format and ensure any URL includes https://.

Preview couldn't load

Cause: A browser extension, ad/tracker blocker, or temporary network issue prevented the embedded preview iframe from loading within 15 seconds. Your custom domain may also be disconnected.

Fix: The error panel shows two options:

  • Click Retry to reload the preview iframe with a fresh request.

  • Click Open in new tab to view the live help center in a new browser tab.

Help center looks different in one browser session

Cause: A third-party browser extension that injects CSS into pages can hide or rearrange help-center elements, including the sidebar navigation, the contact buttons, and the search behavior. Extensions run per browser profile, so the full interface can still appear in incognito or a different Google session, and an extension update can make the problem appear or disappear on its own.

Fix: Disable the conflicting extension, then reload the help center. In Chrome, open chrome://extensions/ and toggle the extension off, or remove it. To confirm the extension is the cause, open the same help center URL in an incognito window or a profile without the extension: the sidebar, contact buttons, and article search return there, which shows the difference is on the reader's device rather than in your help center configuration or account permissions.

What's Next

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