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Article Backups, Revisions, and Versioning

HelpDocs is designed to be used as a team. But sometimes when you have a lot of users working on an article things can get messed up. With version control, you don't have to fret. 🙃

Taylor Sloane
Updated by Taylor Sloane
Table of Contents

HelpDocs is designed to be used as a team. But sometimes when you have a lot of users working on an article, things get messed up. Or you delete something you shouldn't have. Or make a change you regret 😢

That's why HelpDocs ships with non-destructive version control.

Every 5 minutes we check for a new save of your article and create a version from that. Then if you need to, you can Browse previous versions and Restore to that point in time.

For every version we save:

  • A version number
  • A unique id to prevent collisions (something you'll never directly use)
  • The article body
  • The user_id of the user making the change

We also give you a button to instantly restore the article to its previous state.

HelpDocs saves the 10 most recent versions of all your articles.

Browsing and Restoring Versions

  1. In the article editor click Versions in the bottom left of the text editor
  2. You'll see all the saved versions as tabs at the top of the screen. Click one to select it.
  3. To restore the version, hit Restore Version
The version preview might not display all your custom styles. Once you restore a version, you'll see them in the article preview.

Compare Versions

  1. In the article editor, click Versions in the bottom left of the text editor
  2. To the right you'll see a dropdown. Select a version to compare with the current one
  3. You'll see additions in green and deletions in red

You can view these changes in two different ways, depending on what's easier for you to read.

Switch between Side-by-side and Inline at any time using the toggle above your version comparison.

Shows both versions next to each other in columns, a bit like comparing branches on GitHub. This view is handy for spotting whole blocks of changes at a glance.

Side-by-side article version comparison in HelpDocs showing additions and deletions

It'll automatically collapse any blocks that aren't different, saving you a bunch of eye-scanning time.

Shows both versions merged into a single flow of text, with additions and deletions appearing on the same line. This view is handy for spotting small edits within a sentence or paragraph.

Article version history interface showing inline text comparisons with green and pink highlights

Restore Unsaved Changes

Accidentally navigated away from the page and lost your changes? With some internet magic, you can restore the article you just lost by selecting version zero (V0) 🪄

Article version history panel displaying past revisions, unsaved changes tag, and a Restore button.
  1. In the article editor click Versions in the bottom left of the text editor
  2. You'll see all the saved versions as tabs at the top of the screen
  3. Click V0
  4. Hit 🔄 Restore to get your changes back

Of course, we hope this never happens to you (and recommend you save often) but if it does, just know there's a version zero waiting for you just in case 😌

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