Multilingual knowledge base

Last Update: Sep 2024 • Est. Read Time: 4 MIN
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The multilingual knowledge base feature in Kustomer allows you to provide help content to your users all over the globe in several different languages. Turning on additional languages for your knowledge base allows you to:

  • Create knowledge base categories in those languages.
  • Create articles in those languages.
  • Allow your customers to view articles in the supported languages.
Who can access this feature?
User typesContent administrators can access knowledge base settings. Admins can edit Localization settings.


In this article

Turn on languages globally

To create a knowledge base in multiple languages, you must first turn on those languages in the global languages section of the app. You can find this section by going to Settings> Administration > Localization.

Select the All tab to see the complete list of all languages that Kustomer supports. To activate a specific language, turn on the Activate toggle for each language. In this example, the default language is set to English, and we are going to turn on Spanish as an additional language.

For more information on this page, see Customize localization settings.

Configure the languages your knowledge base supports

After you’ve activated additional languages in the global localization settings, you can turn on those languages so that customers can view your knowledge base. To do this, go to Settings > Knowledge Base > Configuration. In the page's Default Language & Title section, you can change the default language that customers will see when they go to your help center, and also turn on the additional languages you’d like to support. 

After turning on each language you want to support in your knowledge base and entering a title for each, select Save Changes. Learn more about this page at Configuring your knowledge base.

Create multilingual knowledge base categories

The next step is to create knowledge base categories in each of your supported languages. You can do this by going to Settings > Knowledge Base > Categories. Here, you can  can identify which categories are missing different language version, and add the corresponding translations. 

Each category has a globe icon with a fraction next to it. This represents the number of languages this category contains. Hovering over this icon shows you which languages this category supports. For example, if you have two languages activated in your knowledge base, and have a category in only one of those languages, the fraction says "1/2".


To add create a new category, select Add Category. You an also edit an existing category by hovering over the category and selecting Edit Category. Here, you can select any of your activated languages and create categories for them.

Note: If you don't select a language version, that category will not exist in that language. For example, let’s say you have an article that's translated in both English and Spanish, and it's in the Ordering & Shipping (English) category. If you don’t have a Spanish translation for that category, then that category and all of the articles and subcategories inside of it will not appear on your Spanish customer-facing knowledge base. However, those articles will still appear in search results.

For more information on article categories, see Organize your knowledge base with categories.

Create multilingual articles

You can create multiple language versions of any given article in your knowledge base by selecting the desired language from the Viewing Language drop-down menu. Then, you can create your content in that language, assign it to a category, and publish the article to your knowledge base.

You can manage all article details per language. Each separate language instance of an article has its own version history. All published versions of an article are archived per language so you  can go back and view the entire published history of your Spanish article. Additionally, you can easily choose to create a new draft from a previous version if you'd like to revert some content.

Note: If an article is not published for a specific language it will not exist in that language's version of your help center. Additionally, if the category (or any accompanying sub-categories) is not translated and the article is published, it can only be found using its direct URL or via your knowledge base search.

For more information, see Create knowledge base articles.

Customize your theme using snippets

By default, Kustomer provides a large number of snippets for various elements in your knowledge base that come translated in all of our supported languages, such as the site's navigation text or welcome message. In this example, you can see these translations after you activate any of our supported languages by changing the language for your knowledge base to Spanish.  

Notice in the above image that the text underneath the main welcome message wasn't translated since a default snippet isn't available. You can create your snippets to help translate these more custom areas of your knowledge base. For more information on how to create them, see Text snippets.

Once you create a snippet for this text, you can insert it while customizing your theme.


Tip: Snippets are indicated with purple highlighted text.

Now, all the text on your home page translates once you choose Spanish.