How to Export Knowledge Base Article from the Customer Portal
Customers, visitors, and agents can save a Knowledge Base (KB) article as a PDF directly from the Customer Portal. This is useful for offline reading, sharing with stakeholders, attaching to tickets, or keeping a point‑in‑time copy of a guide. This article explains how admins enable this option and how customer portal users export and open the PDF.
Prerequisites
To export articles through the customer portal, the Show export as PDF option must be enabled in the customer portal settings, as explained below:
How to Enable “Show Export as PDF Option”
Enable the feature once in the Customer Portal settings so it appears on every KB article for viewers.
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Go to Admin → Customer Portal.
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Open the Knowledge Base tab.
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Check Show export PDF option.
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Click Update to save.
Once enabled, the “Export as PDF” option will appear in every article within the customer portal.
How to Export an Article as PDF in the Customer Portal
Use the article’s More menu to generate a downloadable PDF.
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Open the article in the Customer Portal.
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Click the three‑dots (More) menu in the top‑right of the article header.
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Select Export as PDF. A download begins, and a confirmation toast appears (e.g., “PDF downloaded successfully.”).
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When your browser shows the download notification, open the file from your browser’s Downloads panel or your default download folder and view the content.
Resolve PDF export issues: missing images and truncated content
Issue
After exporting a KB article as PDF:
- Images may appear broken or missing.
- Some content may be truncated or not rendered correctly.
Cause
Images embedded in the KB article may be hosted on a restricted-access domain that requires authentication (example: https://docs.domain.com/...).
They display correctly in the customer portal because the portal session is authenticated, but PDF export renders the article externally (outside the logged-in session). As a result, the exporter cannot access secured image URLs, so images fail to load and the rendered output may be incomplete.
Example of a restricted image source
https://docs.domain.com/s1/sampledocs_3.png
Recommendations (prevention)
- Do not copy/paste content that includes embedded images from restricted or external sources, because the original (non-public) image paths may be retained.
- Upload and insert images directly using the KB editor so images are hosted within the platform and accessible to both the portal view and PDF export.
Fix an existing article with missing images in PDF export
- Open the affected KB article in Edit mode.
- For each broken image: open the article in the Customer Portal, right-click the image, and Copy it.
- Return to the KB editor and paste the image to replace the existing image.
- Repeat for each affected image, then save the article.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Why can’t I see “Export as PDF” within the more options feature in a BoldDesk article?
To see the “Export as PDF” option, ask an admin to enable Show export PDF option under Admin → Customer Portal → Knowledge Base, then Update. -
What content is included in the PDF of an exported BoldDesk article?
The export captures the article’s visible title and body as rendered in the portal. -
Can I export multiple articles at once from the BoldDesk’s Customer Portal?
No. The portal exports one article at a time. -
How are images handled in PDF export?
Images are included if the exporter can access their URLs during rendering. Images hosted on restricted/authenticated domains can fail to load, resulting in missing images or incomplete output. -
How are videos handled in PDF export?
Videos are represented as a thumbnail in the PDF. Selecting the thumbnail redirects to the video source. -
Why do images appear in the portal but not in the exported PDF?
The portal can display restricted images using the authenticated browser session, but PDF export renders externally and cannot fetch images from secured URLs.
