Override text or image fill on a specific instance of a reusable symbol
NOTE: originally this request asked for the ability to override many different styles, not just images and text. If you want to override other styles, please upvote:
https://adobexd.uservoice.com/forums/353007/suggestions/19626142-override-styles-in-a-symbol
You may also be interested in these related requests:
- Override entire nested symbols: https://adobexd.uservoice.com/forums/353007/suggestions/19592509-nested-symbols-override
- Multiple swappable states inside one symbol: https://adobexd.uservoice.com/forums/353007/suggestions/13031871-add-multiple-states-inside-symbols
- Resizable symbols: https://adobexd.uservoice.com/forums/353007/suggestions/16939339-scale-resize-symbols-individually
Balsamic Symbol :
Any group of elements than can be named and re-used across multiple artboards.
Modifications to the symbol are reflected across all artboards that use the symbol.
It gets better - you can override part of the symbol - text / color / position - for a specific instance.
Any override does not get affected by changes to the symbol.
You can reset anytime your instance edits to the symbol state.
This feature saves an incredible amount of time.
Lionel
shared this idea
Symbol overrides are now available! Download the June release of XD today to get access to bitmap and text overrides (as well as the Apply command, which will apply your changes from the selected symbol to all other symbols).
If you don’t see the update in the Creative Cloud desktop application, click on the gear icon and select “Check for App Updates.”
-Elaine
47 comments
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Oleg
commented
It's totally necessary to be ablse to override width/height of a symbol instance.
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Kris
commented
If by complete, you mean you have to ungroup the symbol to change the color of one instance of it and then regroup and save it as a new symbol? That's not complete.
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Anonymous
commented
Does that work for AI
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Anonymous
commented
@Elaine I believe this feature is FAR from complete. This feature misses so much of the functionality required its almost useless.
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Cyrill Studer commented
When trying to change text within a symbol it’s not reflected on all of the instances because XD thinks it an override. But there may be times when you actually want all of the instances to change. So please provide a solution for this too!
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Justin Ponczek commented
If you cannot resize a button to accommodate for more text without ungrouping it from the symbol, than symbol overrides are nearly useless. Simply allowing us to change the text or image in a symbol is not enough.
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joe flory
commented
Agree with all the users commenting posting about the "feature-completed" on this feature request. Having text and bitmap overrides is definitely a step in the right direction but like another user said, it's 'half-baked'. Color and shape overrides are needed as well, to match Figma/Sketch's excellent override features.
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Bruno
commented
Somehow on my version - 0.6.34.3 is not updating the symbols instances when i change the text.
Mac OS Sierra 10.12.5Any ideas how to solve this?
Thank you very much.
Kind Regards
Bruno -
Luis escorial
commented
The fact that XD is putting attention to symbols is great, but I have to agree with many of the comments here. I've been a big user of Sketch from the beginning (I know comparisons are a pain, sorry about that), and became very familiar with Symbols.
The power of overriding symbols, everything from color (using a symbol within a symbol, text, and so on is just incredible, and everything through the override inspector to the right.
Honestly, this is one of the reasons that is keeping me out of switching fully, plus the pining.
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Martin
commented
the current feature only allows text and bitmap overrides. no other parameters, e,g. colors, strokes, visibility ... . i'm hoping that this is not really considered feature complete.
like other posters, i think figma components are amazing, both a huge time saver and a great aid in keeping designs consistent. -
Anonymous
commented
Making this as completed is very misleading... it still has a lot more work to catch up with Sketch and even better to catch up with Figma components which are amazing.
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James
commented
Awesome job team, I can't wait to get into it!
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eyal
commented
I love the symbols feature, but it seems a bit half-baked without the ability to have different versions of the same symbol.
For example, when due to change in background/element color behind the status bar, the status bar needs to be white instead of black - it would be nice to have a second version/iteration of it that it could be replaced with. Right now, I would need to ungroup symbol and manually change color of all elements within the group, which is time consuming.
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Bill Alexy commented
w00t!
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Gheyath
commented
love that, thank
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James
commented
This is awesome news. Can't wait to have this feature.
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Nelson
commented
There should be a way to change content in a symbol in the same way that you can change content in grid repeats. The grid repeat function is awesome, but it won't work across pages. Often you may want to make a unit that can be reused across pages, and updated stylistically at the same time. There is a function for this in Sketch using the Craft plugin with data, but there is no equivalent function here.
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Gheyath
commented
i've seen symbol related requests, such as to scale, resize, rotate, flip, swap symbols... etc, we probably need the option to "tint" symbols as well, rather than filling up the library with variations of the same symbol but different colors.
this way when we change/modify/fix a symbol, we don't have to go through all the other variations in the library to do so.
this inspired by flash/animate, which handles all symbol related stuff pretty well.
thanks for such a great product
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Rene Perol
commented
Hi guys, after thoroughly testing Adobe XD, right now I decided to stick with using another software for Ui designs mainly because of their very good handling of exactly this symbols override issues. It allows to override:
- text
- colours
- nested symbols
- switching symbols while maintaining relative positioning (based on center)
- size (with the added feature of selecting different styles of rules for resizing, like pin to corner, maintain relative position of nested elements while resizing others of the group, etc).I would really love to switch to adobe for Ui design, mainly because of CC Cloud, the prototyping features, shortcuts I'm used to and basic tools consistency / drag and drop integration with other Adobe softwares.
Unfortunately, I'll have to wait for this features to exist in XD before I make the switch because this is a deal breaker as far as my productivity is concerned. Overriding symbols is essential in many of my projects that usually go as far as more than a hundred screens.
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Vestimir Markov
commented
At first it would be great to have overrides for the following:
- text
- nested symbols inside the symbolThis way we can organize the coloring/styling in other symbols and just override them.
But text is a must – it's pointless to create a button symbol and not to be able to change its label.