Make a small inventory before exporting
Record the articles you intend to move, their current URLs, categories, owners and intended readers. Mark content that is obsolete, duplicated or specific to an older product version. There is little benefit in carrying every outdated answer into a new help center.
List the details that are not ordinary prose: images, downloads, videos, tables, callouts, internal links and access settings. Identify the person who can verify each important workflow. Keep the original export unchanged as a reference while preparing import files.
Choose a sample that can reveal problems
Try an ordinary text article, one with a table or code sample, one with media, one with internal links and one that should not be public. These examples exercise different parts of migration. Testing five nearly identical text pages gives less information.
Compare the source and destination as a reader. Check whether headings make sense, attachments load and links lead to the intended destination. Record a specific repair for each mismatch before scaling the import to the rest of the collection.
Know what ClearWay Docs imports today
ClearWay Docs supports previewing and importing Markdown, HTML and normalized article JSON. Core and Pro also support reviewed GitHub/GitLab Markdown imports. Preview shows validation issues before you commit an import.
This is not a claim of complete native migration from every help-center vendor. Source-specific metadata, attachments, complex layouts and access rules need review. A ZIP export is not automatically remapped into a complete new workspace with all foreign identifiers, media URLs and relationships reconstructed.
Check the parts that text conversion can miss
| Check | Question to answer before publication |
|---|---|
| Content | Does the article explain the correct current workflow? |
| Media | Do images and downloads load for the intended reader? |
| Links | Do internal links point to the new article URLs? |
| Audience | Is customer-only or team-only content still restricted? |
| Structure | Are articles in the intended collections and sections? |
| Old URLs | Is there an appropriate redirect where an address changed? |
Publish in a controlled order
Start with a coherent collection, such as onboarding, so customers can complete a whole task. Keep the previous help center available until the new links and access behavior are verified. Coordinate changes to Help links in the app with the content cutover.
ClearWay Docs article redirects preserve links when article slugs change inside a site. Cross-domain redirects and the old provider’s URL handling depend on your hosting and migration setup; do not assume a new article alone fixes the old address. After cutover, use failed searches and customer reports to find omissions.
Common questions
Can I move a help center by importing Markdown?
Does ClearWay Docs automatically rebuild an entire exported workspace?
Use a representative sample to learn the repair work before moving the full help center. Publish when content, links and access rules all pass the reader’s test.