Meta Title: FAQs: Multilingual CAPTCHA in Help Center | Zoho Desk

FAQs: Multilingual CAPTCHA in Help Center

Scope of CAPTCHA in Help Center

Why does the Help Center use CAPTCHA for ticket submissions?
CAPTCHA protects the Help Center’s ticket form from automated submissions. Unregistered visitors can submit support queries, but this convenience can also be exploited by bots that create spam tickets. Requiring a human-verification challenge before submission helps reduce invalid requests, potential security risks, and operational disruption caused by incorrect case assignments.

For example, an organization with a public Help Center may receive large volumes of bot-generated tickets overnight. CAPTCHA adds a verification step that automated submitters are less likely to complete, helping agents focus on genuine customer requests.
Which visitors are affected by the CAPTCHA setting?
The setting applies to unregistered users in the Add Tickets form. It is specifically named Show captcha for unregistered users in the add tickets form. Users who are registered or signed in are not the group described by this setting.

This distinction matters when investigating reports that CAPTCHA is visible: first confirm whether the person is accessing the Help Center as an unsigned-in visitor rather than as a registered, signed-in user.
Is CAPTCHA enabled by default?
Yes. The Show captcha for unregistered users in the add tickets form option is enabled by default on the Help Center Access Settings page.

If unregistered visitors are submitting tickets without a verification prompt, review the current setting rather than assuming the default is still in effect. An authorized user may have disabled it after the Help Center was configured.

Permissions and configuration

Who can enable or disable CAPTCHA in the Help Center?
Users with permission to access Support Channels can enable or disable the Show captcha for unregistered users in the add tickets form option from Help Center Access Settings.

Having access to submit or manage tickets does not, by itself, establish that a user can change this Help Center security setting. The relevant permission is access to Support Channels.
Where is CAPTCHA configured?
CAPTCHA is configured in Help Center Access Settings. Enable the option that shows CAPTCHA for unregistered users in the Add Tickets form.
To enable captcha for unregistered users
  1. Naviaget to Setup > Support Channels > Help Center.
  2. Click the Help Center.
  3. Click Help Center Access Settings from the left panel.
  4. Locate Show captcha for unregistered users in the add tickets form.
  5. Enable the option to require verification before an unregistered user submits a ticket.
The setting can also be disabled from the same location by a user who has the required Support Channels permission.
Does CAPTCHA stop users from submitting tickets entirely?
No, CAPTCHA is a verification requirement, not a block on legitimate ticket submission. An unregistered user can still submit a query after completing the image-based or audio-based challenge.

For instance, an unsigned-in customer seeking help can complete the verification and continue with the ticket form; the added step is intended to distinguish human requests from automated spam.
What operational problem does CAPTCHA help address besides spam?
Spam tickets can affect work management because they introduce invalid cases that may be assigned incorrectly. CAPTCHA helps reduce these false submissions before they enter the support workflow, rather than requiring agents to identify and handle every bot-generated ticket after it is created.

It is a preventive control for the public, unregistered submission path. It should not be interpreted as a replacement for other Help Center access or ticket-management practices.

  Image-based CAPTCHA

How does image-based CAPTCHA work?
Image-based CAPTCHA asks the visitor to view a set of images and select the correct answer from the available options. A prompt may, for example, ask the user to identify particular animals in the displayed image. Successfully choosing the correct response verifies that the submission is being made by a human rather than an automated bot.
Which languages are supported for image-based CAPTCHA?
Image-based CAPTCHA supports 52 languages:
  1. English (En)
  2. Afrikaans (Af)
  3. Arabic (Ar)
  4. Bulgarian (Bg)
  5. Bengali (Bn)
  6. Catalan (Ca)
  7. Chinese (Simplified) (Zh)
  8. Chinese (Traditional) (zh-tw)
  9. Czech (Cs)
  10. Danish (Da)
  11. German (De)
  12. Greek (El)
  13. Spanish (Es)
  14. Persian (Fa)
  15. Finnish (Fi)
  16. French (Fr)
  17. French (Canada) (fr-ca)
  18. Gujarati (Gu)
  19. Hindi (Hi)
  20. Croatian (Hr)
  21. Hungarian (Hu)
  22. Hebrew (He)
  23. Indonesian (Id)
  24. Italian (It)
  25. Japanese (Ja)
  26. Georgian (Ka)
  27. Kazakh (Kk)
  28. Khmer (Km)
  29. Kannada (Kn)
  30. Korean (Ko)
  31. Malayalam (ML)
  32. Marathi (Mr)
  33. Malay (Ms)
  34. Burmese (My)
  35. Norwegian Bokml (Nb)
  36. Dutch (NL)
  37. Polish (PL)
  38. Portuguese (Pt)
  39. Portuguese (Brazil) (pt-br)
  40. Romanian (Ro)
  41. Russian (Ru)
  42. Slovak (Sk)
  43. Slovenian (SL)
  44. Swedish (Sv)
  45. Tamil (Ta)
  46. Telugu (Te)
  47. Thai (Th)
  48. Turkish (Tr)
  49. Ukrainian (Uk)
  50. Urdu (Ur)
  51. Vietnamese (Vi)
For example, an unregistered visitor in Portugal can select Portuguese in the Help Center and complete CAPTCHA in that language, helping make the verification step understandable without changing the underlying security control.
Does multilingual support apply equally to both CAPTCHA formats?
No, Image-based CAPTCHA supports 52 languages, while audio-based CAPTCHA supports six languages. Language coverage must therefore be evaluated by CAPTCHA type, not simply by whether multilingual CAPTCHA is enabled.
A Help Center may offer its interface in a language supported by image CAPTCHA but not by audio CAPTCHA. In that scenario, the audio challenge follows its English fallback behavior.

  Audio-based CAPTCHA and accessibility

What is audio-based CAPTCHA?
Audio-based CAPTCHA is an alternative verification method that presents a simple arithmetic calculation through an audio prompt. The visitor listens to the prompt and enters the answer. It is particularly useful for people who prefer auditory input, including users with visual challenges.

For example, instead of selecting an answer from images, a visitor may hear a basic calculation and provide the result to complete verification before submitting the ticket.
Which languages are supported for audio-based CAPTCHA?
Audio-based CAPTCHA is supported in these six languages:
  1. German (De)
  2. French (Fr)
  3. Italian (It)
  4. Russian (Ru)
  5. Turkish (Tr)
  6. Telugu (Te)
This list is intentionally shorter than the image-based CAPTCHA language list.
What happens when a visitor selects a Help Center language that audio CAPTCHA does not support?
The audio CAPTCHA plays in English by default when the selected Help Center language is not one of the six supported audio languages.

For example, if a visitor uses the Help Center in Portuguese and chooses an audio CAPTCHA, the audio prompt is played in English because Portuguese is not among the supported audio CAPTCHA languages. The visitor can instead use image-based CAPTCHA, which supports Portuguese.
How should a team plan for users who need an audio verification option?
Confirm the selected Help Center languages against the six supported audio CAPTCHA languages. If the Help Center serves audiences using languages outside that set, expect the audio prompt to be in English. Image-based CAPTCHA has broader language coverage, but users who need an auditory option should be considered explicitly when planning the support experience.

Avoid promising audio CAPTCHA in every localized Help Center language. The current behavior is English fallback for unsupported audio languages, not automatic audio translation.

Troubleshooting and decision guidance

Why might CAPTCHA appear in a language different from the visitor’s Help Center language?
For audio CAPTCHA, this occurs when the selected Help Center language is outside the six supported audio languages; the prompt defaults to English. For image CAPTCHA, verify that the selected language is among the 52 supported languages.
The format matters. A language mismatch reported for audio CAPTCHA does not necessarily indicate a configuration error.
What should be checked if CAPTCHA is not appearing for an unregistered ticket submitter?
  1. Confirm the user is unregistered or not signed in.
    1. The setting is specifically for unregistered users in the Add Tickets form.
  2. Navigate to Setup > Support Channels > Help Center.
  3. Click on the required Help Center Access Settings.
  4. Click on the Help Center Access Settings from the left panel.
  5. Confirm Show captcha for unregistered users in the add tickets form is enabled.
  6. Confirm the person reviewing the configuration has Support Channels permission.
Because the option is enabled by default, absence of CAPTCHA may indicate that the setting was disabled, or that the test was performed while signed in rather than as an unregistered visitor.
Should CAPTCHA be disabled to make public ticket submission faster?
Disabling the setting removes the verification requirement for unregistered visitors, but it also removes a control intended to reduce automated spam, potential security risks, and invalid ticket assignments. Before disabling it, weigh the reduced form friction against the expected increase in exposure to bot-generated submissions.

A public Help Center that depends heavily on unsigned-in submissions may benefit from retaining CAPTCHA, particularly when spam tickets consume agent time or distort queue assignment.
Does CAPTCHA provide language support for every Help Center visitor?
It provides extensive multilingual coverage for image-based CAPTCHA and limited multilingual coverage for audio-based CAPTCHA. Image CAPTCHA supports 52 languages; audio CAPTCHA supports six and uses English for all other selected Help Center languages. Teams should communicate that boundary clearly when accessibility and localized support are requirements.