What's New With the Conversation Editor
We’ve made some big changes to the conversation editor in Help Scout! The new conversation editor includes powerful new ways to compose emails to your customers and keeps your hands at the keyboard for fast and efficient communication.
The new editor is a part of our new Inbox experience. Click on your avatar or initials in the top right corner of the top menu in Help Scout, then click Try the new Inbox to give it a spin!
More about some of the other changes with Inbox here: What's New With the Inbox
Note: If you don’t see the option to switch to Inbox yet in your Help Scout, it just means we haven’t surfaced that option for your account just yet — we’re rolling things out slow and steady. If you’d rather be an early adopter than wait for us, give us a shout and we’ll switch you over now.
For a complete guide on using the new editor, check out Reply and Add Notes to Conversations.
What’s Changed?
We’ve made formatting your text and adding items to your emails quicker and more efficient to help your team fly through that queue, with Markdown support and quick menu access when and where you need it.
Markdown Support
The conversation editor now supports some basic Markdown elements allowing you to format as you type, without extra clicks or having to highlight text. If you’ve never used Markdown before, it’s quick and easy to learn and you’ll be surprised how much time it saves.
| Formatting | Markdown |
|---|---|
 |
Surround your text with double asterisks: **your text** |
 |
Surround your text with single asterisks: *your text* |
 |
Surround your text with tildes: ~your text~ |
 |
Surround your text with backticks: `your text` |
 |
Type an angle bracket, then press Space before your text: > your blockquote |
 |
Type 1 and a period, then press Space in front of your text: 1. your text To indent, press Tab |
 |
Type dash or asterisk, then press Space in front of your text: - your text To indent, press Tab |
Formatting Menu
If you would rather type it all out and then highlight portions to format — we’ve got you covered there too! Just highlight the text you want to format, using the keyboard or the mouse, and you’ll see a formatting menu bar pop up where you can select options like bold, italic, code, and more.
The old tried and true keyboard shortcuts for formatting will still work too, for those of you that just don’t want to touch that mouse. See Keyboard Shortcuts: Text Editor for more help on those.
Shortcut Menu
The shortcut menu has been thoughtfully designed to help you move through the options efficiently, whether you like to work with the keyboard or the mouse, or a combination of the two.
There are two ways to access the full menu of options:
Keyboard queue crushers can use the slash command (/) to open the menu without having to touch the mouse.
Mouse maestros can click the plus sign (+) at the bottom right corner of the editor to open the menu.
Use the keyboard to type the names of options or the arrow keys to navigate and hit return/enter to select them, or use the mouse to navigate and select the options. Or switch it all up and combine the two, whatever helps you work the best!
In this menu you’ll find all of the options that used to be above the editor field — like the options to attach files or insert images, saved replies, or links to Docs articles — along with formatting options and a couple of shiny new features.
Saved Reply Preview
Preview saved replies before you insert them to choose the right saved reply on the first try. Just hold Option (on Mac) or Alt (on Windows) and click the saved reply, or use the right arrow key in the list to preview it before you insert it.
Built in Emoji Picker
Add emojis quickly from the new built in emoji picker! 🎉 Type a colon (:) to jump right to the emoji list, or navigate to Emoji in the shortcut menu.
We’re excited to bring you this improvement to our conversation editor — give things a spin and try some of the new options. If you have any questions or feedback about the new editor, we'd love to hear from you!