Guide settings

Open a guide and choose Settings. Only Guides admins can change them; everyone else sees how the guide is set up. Each setting saves as soon as you change it, and reaches readers at the next publish.

The guide's free address, <address>.guides.markdrop.in, with Copy link. It always works, even after you add your own domain.

To change it, choose Change, type the new address and choose Save address. The same rules apply as when you created the guide. The new address goes live at the next publish, and the old one stops working, so change it before you share the link.

Serve the guide from a subdomain your company owns, like help.acme.com or docs.acme.com. You add one DNS record; the HTTPS certificate is issued and renewed for you. The free address keeps working beside it. Only Guides admins add and remove domains, and a guide can have two.

This is separate from a Markdrop workspace's own domain, which serves the workspace's documents and files, not its guides.

1. In the guide's Settings, under Your own domain, choose Add a domain, type the subdomain (for example help.acme.com) and choose Add domain.

2. The card shows the record to add, with copy buttons:

   Type	Name	Value
   CNAME	help.acme.com	cname.guides.markdrop.in

3. Sign in where your domain's DNS is managed (often where you bought it) and add that CNAME record. Many providers add your domain to the name for you: there, type just help.

4. Wait. Markdrop checks on its own and the status moves from Checking DNS to Issuing certificate to Live, usually a few minutes after your DNS change is visible. Choose Re-check to check right away.

5. Once it's Live, readers get the guide at https://help.acme.com. Markdrop publishes the live version again, so links, the sitemap, llms.txt and preview cards use your domain from then on. Keep the record in place.

Two more records, Ownership record and Certificate record (both TXT), may show under the CNAME. You only need them when your domain sits behind another proxy or CDN, or if you want it checked before you switch the CNAME over from another service.

A root domain like acme.com can't be added yet: DNS doesn't allow a CNAME record at the root, and Markdrop doesn't offer fixed IP addresses for an A record. Use a subdomain such as help.acme.com or docs.acme.com, and if you want, redirect the root to it at your DNS provider.

Choose Remove next to it and confirm. The guide stops answering there right away; links, the sitemap and search results go back to the free address after the publish Markdrop starts for you. You can then delete the CNAME record.

• It stays on Checking DNS. The CNAME record isn't visible yet. Check its name and value for typos, and that the name doesn't end up doubled (help.acme.com.acme.com) because your provider added the domain for you. DNS changes can take up to an hour, sometimes longer. Then choose Re-check.
• There's already a record for that name. A subdomain can have only one CNAME, and no CNAME beside other records of the same name. Delete the old record first.
• It's on Cloudflare with the orange cloud. Set the record to DNS only, or add the Ownership record and Certificate record too.
• It stays on Issuing certificate. A CAA record on your domain may allow only other certificate authorities. Remove it, or add one that allows letsencrypt.org and pki.goog.
• It says Problem. Markdrop checks for 3 days, then stops and shows what was in the way. Fix the record, then choose Re-check to start again.
• "Another guide already uses that domain." A domain can serve one guide. Remove it from the other guide first.

Turn the assistant on or off, name it, and suggest questions. See Ask AI on your guide.

The OpenAPI file your guide's API reference is generated from: upload it or fetch it from a URL, see what it found, preview the sidebar it makes, and choose where it appears and whether readers get Try it. See API reference from an OpenAPI file.

Let search engines index the guide is on by default. Turn it off to keep the guide out of search results, for example while it's a work in progress: after the next publish, every page asks search engines not to index it (a noindex tag and header), robots.txt disallows crawling, and the sitemap is empty. Readers with the link can still open the site.

Require changes to be approved before they're published. See Reviews.

Give someone a different role on this guide. See Members and roles. If you aren't an admin, this card shows Your role.

Marked Coming soon. See GitHub sync.

For an imported guide: where it came from, and Open the import report. See Import from GitBook. Other guides show Started from (a template, or blank) here.

Send old addresses to their new pages. See Redirects.

Take the guide down has two buttons:

• Unpublish takes the guide offline: its address stops showing it. Your pages, drafts and publish history stay, and publishing again puts it back.
• Delete guide removes every page, version and publish, and the address stops working. To confirm, you type the guide's name. This can't be undone, and its address is free for someone else to use.

Deleting a guide also makes room for a new one in the workspace.