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Work with design tokens

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  1. Adobe XD User Guide
  2. Introduction
    1. What's new in Adobe XD
    2. Common questions
    3. Design, prototype, and share with Adobe XD
    4. Color Management
    5. System requirements
      1. Hardware and software requirements
      2. Adobe XD, Big Sur, and Apple silicon | macOS 11
    6. Workspace basics
    7. Change app language in Adobe XD
    8. Access UI design kits
    9. Accessibility in Adobe XD
    10. Keyboard shortcuts
    11. Tips and tricks
  3. Design
    1. Artboards, guides, and layers
      1. Get started with artboards
      2. Use guides and grids
      3. Create scrollable artboards
      4. Work with layers
      5. Create scroll groups
    2. Shapes, objects, and path
      1. Select, resize, and rotate objects
      2. Move, align, distribute, and arrange objects
      3. Group, lock, duplicate, copy, and flip objects
      4. Set stroke, fill, and drop shadow for objects
      5. Create repeating elements
      6. Create perspective designs with 3D transforms
      7. Edit objects using Boolean operations
    3. Text and fonts
      1. Work with drawing and text tools
      2. Fonts in Adobe XD
    4. Components and states
      1. Work with components
      2. Work with nested components
      3. Add multiple states to components
    5. Masking and effects
      1. Create a mask with shapes
      2. Work with blur effects
      3. Create and modify gradients
      4. Apply blend effects
    6. Layout
      1. Responsive resize and constraints
      2. Set fixed padding for components and groups
      3. Create dynamic designs with stacks
    7. Videos and Lottie animations
      1. Work with videos
      2. Create prototypes using videos
      3. Work with Lottie animations
  4. Prototype
    1. Create interactive prototypes
    2. Animate prototypes
    3. Object properties supported for auto-animate
    4. Create prototypes with keyboard and gamepad
    5. Create prototypes using voice commands and playback
    6. Create timed transitions
    7. Add overlays
    8. Design voice prototypes
    9. Create anchor links
    10. Create hyperlinks
    11. Preview designs and prototypes
  5. Share, export, and review
    1. Share selected artboards
    2. Share designs and prototypes
    3. Set access permissions for links
    4. Work with prototypes
    5. Review prototypes
    6. Work with design specs
    7. Share design specs
    8. Inspect design specs
    9. Navigate design specs
    10. Review and comment design specs
    11. Export design assets
    12. Export and download assets from design specs
    13. Group sharing for enterprise
    14. Back up or transfer XD assets
  6. Design systems
    1. Design systems with Creative Cloud Libraries
    2. Work with document assets in Adobe XD
    3. Work with Creative Cloud Libraries in Adobe XD
    4. Migrate from linked assets to Creative Cloud Libraries
    5. Work with design tokens 
    6. Use assets from Creative Cloud Libraries
  7. Cloud documents
    1. Cloud documents in Adobe XD
    2. Collaborate and coedit designs
    3. Coedit documents shared with you
  8. Integrations and plugins
    1. Work with external assets
    2. Work with design assets from Photoshop
    3. Copy and paste assets from Photoshop
    4. Import or open Photoshop designs
    5. Work with Illustrator assets in Adobe XD
    6. Open or import Illustrator designs
    7. Copy vectors from Illustrator to XD
    8. Plugins for Adobe XD
    9. Create and manage plugins
    10. Jira integration for XD
    11. Slack plugin for XD
    12. Zoom plug-in for XD
    13. Publish design from XD to Behance
  9. XD for iOS and Android
    1. Preview on mobile devices
    2. Adobe XD on mobile FAQ
  10. Troubleshooting
    1. Known and fixed issues
      1. Known issues
      2. Fixed issues
    2. Installation and updates
      1. XD appears as not compatible on Windows
      2. Error code 191
      3. Error code 183
      4. Issues installing XD plugins
      5.  Prompt to uninstall and reinstall XD on Windows 10
      6. Issues with preferences migration
    3. Launch and crash
      1.  XD crashes when launched on Windows 10
      2.  XD quits when you sign out of Creative Cloud
      3. Issue with subscription status on Windows
      4. Blocked-app warning when launching  XD on Windows
      5. Crash dump generation on Windows
      6. Crash log collection and sharing
    4. Cloud documents and Creative Cloud Libraries
      1. Issues with XD cloud documents
      2. Issues with linked components
      3. Issues with libraries and links
    5. Prototype, publish, and review
      1. Unable to record prototype interactions on macOS Catalina
      2. Issues with publish workflows
      3. Published  links do not appear in browsers
      4. Prototypes do not render correctly in browsers
      5. Commenting panel suddenly showing up on shared links
      6. Unable to publish libraries
    6. Import, export, and working with other apps
      1. Import and export in XD
      2. Photoshop files in XD
      3. Illustrator files in XD
      4. Export to After Effects from XD
      5. Sketch files in XD
      6. Third-party apps not visible in Export

Learn how to use design tokens to assign custom names to colors and character styles.

You can add design tokens in Adobe XD to provide customized common names to colors and character styles that are present in the Assets panel.

design tokens in xd

With design tokens, you don't need to remember long and complex hexadecimal codes and CSS snippets for your assets. You can add simpler names that are easy to recognize. 

After you publish your design spec and share it with other stakeholders, the customized names are visible to them.

 If you do not assign custom variables, Adobe XD automatically creates a unique name and class using the color and character style properties and unnamed prefixes.

Before you proceed

Ensure that:

  • You are familiar with Design Specs and Design Systems.
  • You share the common naming conventions for colors and character styles with your developers.

Create design tokens

You can create design tokens for a new artboard or for an existing artboard where you already added colors and character styles.

 Adobe XD currently does not support renaming of font name, size, or other such properties.

design-mode

A. Color panel B. Double click to add a new name 

In Design mode:

  1. Navigate to the Assets panel. Click + to view the colors and character styles. 
  2. Double-click the default name for the asset and type a new name. The names are used to create corresponding variables and classes for colors and character styles.

 XD automatically creates names for colors and character styles that are not renamed and they typically begin with–unnamed.

Share design tokens

After you create the design tokens, you can share them with the developers through the design specs.

share-design-token
In View Settings, choose Development

In Share mode:

  1. From the View Setting drop-down, choose Development. 
    Ensure that the Export for Web is selected because the link sharing feature is supported only in design spec links that have been exported for web.
  2. Click Create link. Copy the generated link and share it with developers. For more information, see share design prototypes.

To validate the link created in the Share mode, see View design tokens.

 

View design tokens

view-design-tokens

A. View Specs B. View Variables 

To view the design tokens in a shared design specs link, open the shared link in a browser and do the following:

  • To view the design token and their hex code, click </>.  The panel displays the corresponding design tokens. Mouse-over the design tokens to view their hex code.
  • To view the variables, click { }. 

Download design tokens

download design tokens
Download the design tokens

To download the design tokens from a shared design specs link:

  1. Open the shared link in a browser.
  2. Navigate to the CSS code snippets or select the { } icon.
  3. Click Download CSS to download these variables as CSS code snippets that also contain the design tokens.
  4. After you download the snippets, copy and paste them in your implementation code.

Learn more

To learn more about design tokens, watch this video.

Viewing time: 4 minutes

What's next?

We've got you started with creating and sharing your design tokens with your stakeholders. Take a step forward and learn how to inspect design specs.

Have a question or an idea?

Ask the Community

If you have a question to ask or an idea to share, come and participate in Adobe XD Community. We would love to hear from you and see your creations.

 Adobe

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