How to Set Up Multi-Language/Version Knowledge Bases in HelpKit – Docs

HelpKit supports multiple languages and versions of your knowledge base, making it easy to create localized versions for different countries or maintain separate product documentation versions.

This guide will walk you through setting up and managing multiple versions in HelpKit. In case you want to override common words of your default version please refer to the following article.

HelpKit versions will appear as a dropdown selector menu on your HelpKit site

Why Use Multiple Versions?

HelpKit allows you to present your knowledge base in multiple languages and versions, making it adaptable to different user needs. You can serve multiple versions via subpaths like support.piedpiper.com/fr or support.piedpiper.com/v1. This feature is useful for:

Language Translations (e.g., /en, /es, /fr)

Product Versions (e.g., /v1, /v2, /beta)

Custom Variants (e.g., /cloud, /enterprise)

Each version will have its own dedicated Notion page, serving as the source for its category structure and article content. This mean that also each version needs to be individually synced when updates have been made to the content of the version.

As soon as at least one additional version is live, your help center or documentation site will display a version selector dropdown on its site. Users will then be able to navigate to their desired version via this dropdown menu. Your version is also available directly as a subpath via its path name in the URL.

Watch The Video Tutorial

Watch our quick 8-min video tutorial and learn everything you need on how to setup and use multiple versions with HelpKit.

1. Accessing the Multi-Version Settings

Navigate to Settings.

Click on the Languages & Versions tab.

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To use the multi version feature your project requires the Professional plan. The Professional plan allows you to create 2 languages or versions of your knowledge base. If you need more, please contact us for a dedicated custom plan.

2. Creating a New Version

Option 1: Quick Language Setup

HelpKit will automatically localize common words in your Help Center.

HelpKit will automatically set the meta language value to the corresponding language.

We recommend choosing this option if you are planning to add a language version.

Option 2: Custom Version Setup

Allows you to create a version manually.

We recommended choosing this option if you need to choose a custom path name to differentiate between multiple product versions for example.

3. Duplicating your Notion Template

Within the add version modal you will be able to either duplicate your existing knowledge base (suggested if you are planning to add another language) or duplicate our blank HelpKit Notion template if you want to start from scratch.

Click on one of the option links inside the popup window to open a Notion template

Duplicate the template.

Rename it (e.g., add a language identifier like "EN" or "DE").

Overwrite the categories and article content with the translated/custom version.

4. Connecting the New Version to HelpKit

In HelpKit's Languages & Versions tab, click Add New Version.

Select the language/version from the dropdown.

Paste the Notion public link of your new template.

Click Connect.

Ensure the preview displays correctly.

Hit the Add Language button

5. Publishing the New Version

After you have added a new version it will be in a draft state. The version is not yet live for users to visit.

Click Click to Publish to make the new version live.

Verify the new version appears in the Help Center version dropdown.

Navigate to the knowledge base page on your HelpKit dashboard and perform a full sync to cache all the articles for faster loading.

AI Support: HelpKit AI will automatically adapt to each version's content.

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You will only see the version dropdown in your HelpKit dashboard if at least one additional version has been published. If your version is in draft mode, the version dropdown will not appear yet.

6. Customizing and Editing Version Settings

You can edit your version settings by clicking on the Edit button.

Localization: Override the default wording for the version.

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By default your default version will show “Default Version” as the display name. We recommend you to rename the display name of your default version to something more expressive such as “English” or “Main Version”.

SEO: Set your version’s landing page meta title & description as well as the site language. (🙋‍♂️ Recommended)

Links: Ensure your menu and footer links are localized. By default HelpKit will display your default version’s menu and footer links even on your version’s landing page. By adding localized links HelpKit will display those instead of the default ones.

Version Config: Update the version display name, path name and connection Notion page URL. To edit your path name or Notion page URL make sure to toggle the 🔒 Unlock Sensitive Editing butotn.

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Changing sensitive values can break existing links to your knowledge base.

If you change the path name:

All existing links to this version will stop working

Search engines will need to re-index your content

Users with bookmarks will lose access

If you change the Notion page URL:

All content will be replaced with content from the new page

Your existing localization settings will remain

Make sure the new page has a similar structure to avoid issues

7. Testing & Going Live

Directly navigate to your knowledge base version’s subpath via adding the path name to your HelpKit domain (e.g support.helpkit.so/de) or simply click on View Website inside your HelpKit dashboard. Use the version dropdown on your help center / documentation page to switch between versions.

Here’s how the version dropdown will look like on the help center layout:

And here’s how the version dropdown will look like on the documentation layout:

HelpKit Widget: Change Versions

To programatically change versions inside your HelpKit embeddable widget, please refer to the Widget API docs.

Need help setting up multiple versions for your HelpKit project? Reach out to us and we are more than happy to help you out.