Knowledge Management CSS Fonts and Styles - Internal and External

[LemuelC]

Hello

I need a bit of guidance and feedback from the community, as there are some concerns that would be best raised in a community setting regarding CSS formatting within Knowledge Management.

We are using ServiceNow Zurich for Knowledge Articles for both our Internal IT (backend/internal articles) and the user community (front end/public). We are aware of how to change fonts and sizes, as it is based on CSS using rem/em formatting; however, we identified that the internal and public articles are using two different CSS styles and fonts. This can cause confusion, as headings 1, 2, and 3 may look similar due to different fonts, and this is especially noticeable on the public end but not on the internal end. We confirmed that the internal and public sides use entirely different fonts, which can cause accessibility issues for readers and affect knowledge management expectations for the article view.

What we are asking of the community is this: Is it best practice to use the same fonts and sizes for both internal and external use? Logically, this makes sense to ensure consistency, but I'm unsure whether anyone has encountered this issue. We are looking at possible pros and cons to help make a decision.

Thank you.

[MaryG]

Hi @LemuelC 

The difference you are seeing is generally expected rather than necessarily a misconfiguration. Internal and external knowledge articles may be rendered through different presentation layers, themes, and CSS frameworks, so the same article content can inherit different fonts and heading styles.

For the best-practice question, I would separate consistency into two areas.

Where consistency matters

The heading hierarchy should be clear in both experiences. If H1, H2, and H3 appear too similar on the public side, that is the more important concern. Readers should be able to distinguish article sections easily, regardless of whether the font matches the internal experience.

Each experience should also independently meet accessibility expectations for font size, contrast, spacing, readability, and semantic heading structure.

Where exact consistency is less important

Using the identical font family internally and externally is usually a lower priority. The audiences and presentation contexts are different, and it may be more appropriate for public articles to follow the portal’s branding and typography than to match the internal platform experience.

My practical recommendation would be to:

• Correct the heading differentiation issue on the public side first.

• Align public article typography with the portal and organizational brand standards.

• Define and document standard heading usage for authors.

• Avoid article-level formatting that overrides the experience theme unless there is a specific need.

The goal should not necessarily be exact font parity between internal and external articles. The stronger standard is clear hierarchy, accessibility, predictable rendering, and visual consistency within each experience.