Custom / Multiple Nudge Distances
Being able to create custom nudge distance (mapped to a hotkey + direction key) in addition to the standard nudge would be very useful.
Use Case: The site uses 30px multiples for spacing. We set the custom nudge distance to 30px, create a new element and nudge it down once for 30px or twice for 60px for fast uniform spacing. This also works well for measuring out distances; create a 30px tall rectangle and select the bottom edge with the direct selection tool (another feature we need), now nudge it down 3 times for a 4x height. Or change a 4x height section to 6x by selecting the bottom edge and nudging down twice. This is much more intuitive and faster than doing the math and typing in pixel amounts. This is both useful for personal workflow, and ensuring uniform spacing for all team members' work.
This would be in addition to the 1px nudging, so it would be direction key for 1px, and Cmd + direction key for custom distance.

26 comments
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Chris_Reimer commented
I need to be able to adjust my large nudge increments from 10px to 8px.
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Chris_Reimer commented
I need to be able to adjust my large nudge increments from 10px to 8px.
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Anonymous commented
I agree with these folks. 8px or 12px grids are the norm
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Duc Dao commented
LOL, imma stick with with Figma
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Anonymous commented
I've been working exclusively with the power of two in several systems and apps for long-term projects and it would be a really nice feature to set the "nudge by one pixel" or holding shift to "nudge by ten pixles" to any value I want.
The power of two-system could then be set up to be:
- instead of nudging an object one pixel at a time, it could be the smallest allowed measurment in that system (the power of two = 2px)
- the shift-nudge feature could then act as a multiplier on that value (or be fixed if your system prefers it) so that the base nudge of 2px becomes 8px or 16px. -
Dianne commented
Need to be able to set how many pixels for the arrow keys. Default now is 10 pixels, common practices work off of base 8 for spacing. In Sketch it is in their preferences.
Thanks!
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Gabriel Mundim commented
IMPORTANT!!!
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David B. commented
To me, this is the most annoying thing about XD. Actually, if this is not going to be implemented I will switch to Figma once and for all
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Christopher commented
I can't believe that such a simple feature has not been added, especially as a majority of designers work within a 8pt grid structure.
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Nathan Llewellyn commented
This simple thing keeps me from using XD regularly.
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Julius commented
Yes, plus one here as well!
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Sungwhan Cha commented
Come on Adobe XD... You can do better.
You are not innovating anymore, but merely playing catch-up to the other players.
Stop playing politics and do something good for your user base. -
tester commented
what a fail!!!!
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jason commented
I bet the adobe developers and product managers sit back and laugh at actual real requests from actual users. XD has been out for YEARS and yet as a user we're still don't have access to the preferences of the program, UNLIKE the other adobe products.
what gives?
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Yaron commented
You can do that now in Windows, using an integration called Func Creatives.
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-M@ commented
It's absurd that there's no preferences for units! Especially for moving and spacing objects. Been trying to find a hack for two weeks since starting on XD just to work with a normal 8pt system (like every other good modern digital project)
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Craig Willers commented
Utterly vital. Just started switching to XD from Sketch for a project. Can't switch without it.
In AI this function is so vital it's on the main Preferences screen -- I'd probably use it something like 5 times an hour. Even the two step in InDesign is annoying. But to have it not available at all ...
There's the same requests under Custom / Multiple Nudge Distances which also request Increase Height / Width with a shortcut. Also the lack of this is a showstopper (also some kind folks have solved this with a plugin).
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Anonymous commented
3 Years later still cant edit nudge distance!!?? Come on.
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Robert commented
still not available?
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Eduardo Chang. commented
Hello everyone:
Now this is possible with a plugin:
https://github.com/littlebusters/Adjust-size-by-shortcut-for-AdobeXD
You can search for the name in XD's plugin managerand if you on a Mac, you can map the shortcuts using this notation
Plugins->Adjust Size by Shortcut->Command Name
I did them as in other software and its working great.
Plugins->Adjust Size by Shortcut->Shrink Width