Article with long text

Markdown is a simple markup language you can use to easily add formatting, links, and images to plain text. If Markdown is enabled in your account, you can use it in the following places:

• Ticket comments (from the agent interface)
• Macros
• Agent signatures
• Dynamic content

For agents to use Markdown, an administrator has to enable it in your account. (see Enabling formatting options for agents). You cannot use Markdown if rich-text is enabled for your account.

Topics covered in this article:

• Adding Markdown to text
  • Bold
  • Italics
  • Bulleted lists
  • Numbered lists
  • Nested lists
  • Headings
  • Block quotes
  • Inline code
  • Code blocks
  • Images
  • Links
  • Images that are also links
  • Links to tickets
  • Horizontal line rule
  • Line break
• Previewing Markdown in ticket comments

You can configure your Zendesk Support instance to be open, closed, or restricted (see Configuring end-users access and sign in). This article describes how to set up an open Zendesk Support instance so that any user can see your Help Center and submit support requests.

This article contains the following topics:

• Understanding what an open Zendesk Support instance means
• Anybody can submit tickets, no registration required
• Anybody can submit tickets, registration required

Related articles:

• Permitting only added users to submit tickets
• Permitting only users with approved email addresses to submit tickets

Understanding what an open Zendesk Support instance means

Not requiring registration means that all of your users are unverified (users are not prompted to verify their email addresses), which is fine if you don't need or want your users to visit and use your Help Center (for example, see Setting up to provide email-only support). Registered users are verified, meaning that they (or you) have verified their email addresses and user accounts have been created.

Even though you don't require users to register, your users still have the option of registering and creating a login to use your Help Center, unless you modify your Help Center to hide the Sign Up and Login pages.

If you would like to provide open support, you have two options: registered or unregistered end-users. You can add users or they can add themselves.

Keep in mind that if your settings allow anyone to submit tickets, any visitor to your site can register while submitting a support request. This means they'll be able to access Help Center content restricted to signed-in users. For more information, see Configuring how end-users access and sign in to Zendesk Support.