For a summary of features introduced in earlier releases of Adobe XD, Feature summary | earlier releases.
Adobe XD is a vector-based tool for designing and prototyping user experiences for web and mobile apps. Switch easily from wire framing, visual design, interaction design, prototyping, previewing, and sharing, all in one powerful tool.
XD is made for all types of creators - UX/UI designers, interaction designers, experience designers, product designers, web designers, app designers, visual designers, entrepreneurs, and more.
The December 2018 release of XD has the following new exciting features:
- Improved collaboration with cloud-native documents
- Faster and precision designs with object flip
- Productivity gains using search in layers panel
- Preview linked symbol on canvas
Enhancements include improved:
Adobe XD introduces cloud documents, a new cloud-native document type that provides you with a fast and convenient method to manage, share, and retain documents up to date across various devices.
You can save your XD designs as cloud documents to ensure that they are up to date and accessible even when you're offline. You can then share them with other Creative Cloud users and invite them to collaborate. Once you get back online, your work is automatically saved to the cloud.
Cloud documents also support cross-document assets and allow you to link symbols from a cloud document.
Introduction of cloud documents also impacts how you save and access documents on XD mobile. For more information, see Working with cloud documents on mobile, Cloud documents in XD and Managing cloud documents.
XD introduces the option to flip objects vertically or horizontally. Flip works on all basic elements except artboard, repeat grid, and symbols, and accounts for the current rotation of the object when applied.
For more information, see Flip objects.
You can use the Search and Filter in the layers panel to search by layer names or filter layers by text, shapes, and images categories. The search experience is optimized to show only relevant layers and artboards containing the keyword, without the layers structure (for example, expanded groups). This can be helpful when auto-animating layers between artboards.
For more information, see Work with layers.
Roll over the linked symbol update icon in the Assets panel to preview linked symbol updates on canvas before committing them.
For more information, see Preview linked symbol updates.
| Old nomenclature | New nomenclature | Workflows. |
| NA | Share Document | Share cloud documents for review. |
| Publish prototype | Share for Review | Publish and share prototypes for review. |
| Publish design specs | Share for Development | Publish and share design specs with the developers for review. |
| Manage published links | Manage Links | Manage links from assets.adobe.com. |
| Record Video | Record Video | Record a video of interactions between artboards when working with auto-animate. If there's an interactive prototype, all interactions are recorded as an.mp4 file. |
For more information, see Share prototypes, design specs, and cloud documents, Create interactive prototypes, and Use design specs published from Adobe XD.
With improved copy and paste from Adobe Illustrator into XD, the visual fidelity of the layers, its structure, and effects are retained as they were designed in Adobe Illustrator. This workflow is now on par with importing from Illustrator.
Use the new File > Import option to add Photoshop or Illustrator content into an existing XD document when converting an Illustrator or Photoshop content. When you convert smart objects, they remain fully editable (instead of being flattened), and preserve the Photoshop adjustment layers.
For more information, see Working with external assets.
Several improvements have been added to viewing prototypes in a mobile web browser including a full screen default mode, pinch to reveal navigation arrows, home button, prototype information, and report a concern. For more information, see Preview on mobile devices.
When exporting .svg elements from XD or from design specs, you can now export with Presentation Attributes that improves styling and compatibility for common development scenarios such as SVGs exported from XD in Android Studio.
For more information, see Working with external assets.
Adobe XD now supports two-finger rotation of selected objects on touch-screen Windows devices, Mac trackpads, Wacom tablets, touchpad, and touch ring.
On opening either a web prototype or design spec, you can view a gray marker with comment count above the comment icon in the right rail. The count represents total number of unresolved comment threads on an artboard. The comment count is automatically updated if you add a new comment or mark an existing comment as resolved.
For more information, see Share prototypes, design specs, and cloud documents and Use design specs published from Adobe XD.
The October 2018 release of XD has the following new exciting features:
- Design and prototype using voice commands and speech playback
- Authoring and playback with auto-animate and drag gestures
- Cross-document asset sharing with linked symbols
- Design tooling innovation through plugins
- Seamless assets transfer with After Effects and Illustrator
- Win10 live device preview on iOS
Adobe XD provides an easy-to-use solution that lets you use voice commands to trigger an interaction between artboards. Like using a Click or a Tap as a Trigger, you can use Voice to trigger a prototype interaction and Speech Playback as a triggered action. Speech playback gives you access to a powerful text-to-speech engine that helps you design for new platforms like voice assistants and smart speakers. For more information, see Voice design and prototyping.
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Auto-Animate allows you to easily create prototypes with immersive animated transitions. Simply duplicate an artboard, modify object properties, such as size, position, rotation, and apply an Auto-Animate action to create an animated transition between artboards. To use Auto-Animate, ensure that the objects you want to animate have the same layer name between two artboards. For more information, see Create prototypes using auto-animate.
Drag Gesture in XD takes the Auto-Animate feature one step further by allowing you to simulate the drag experience of touch-enabled devices. For more information, see Drag gestures at work.
As design teams grow within organizations coupled with the ever-increasing design surfaces, designers need to collaborate to create consistent and scalable designs. With Linked Symbols, designers can share symbols across documents and ensure that they are always up to date.
Linked Symbols allow you to create and maintain a single source of truth for UI kits, sticker sheets or style guides, and use them in other Adobe XD documents. When you modify a Linked Symbol in the source document, XD notifies documents with instances of that Linked Symbol with those updates. From there, you can preview the changes and choose to accept or reject them. For more information, see Work with linked symbols.
Adobe XD launches the first wave of plugins that helps you automate tasks, integrate with other tools, leverage data in your designs, and much more. This also includes integrations with some of the best collaboration and productivity apps in the market, including Slack, JIRA, and Microsoft Teams.
For information on getting started with plugins, see Plugins for XD.
From Adobe XD 13.0, you can transfer layout designs and assets from Illustrator by opening. ai files from within Adobe XD. The new fast and convenient workflow helps you to seamlessly transfer assets with native mapping of layers, artboards, artwork, and vectors with best visual fidelity, and streamline collaborative environments in different stages of UX process. For more information, see Open Illustrator files in XD.
Feature benefits:
- Seamless usage of Illustrator assets in prototypes: transfer icons, logos, and other vector assets into XD and use UI Kits or full libraries created in Illustrator yet retain layers, with full editability and visual fidelity.
- Collaborate to create interactive designs: open Illustrator files in XD and use XD’s powerful prototyping and collaboration features.
With Adobe XD 13.0, you can easily export XD designs (selected layers or whole artboards) into After Effects to create custom UI animations and micro-interactions. You can seamlessly export layers, artboards, artwork, and vectors with equal visual fidelity and use After Effect’s powerful plugin ecosystem to streamline your collaboration with the developers. For more information, see Exporting assets to After Effects.
Feature benefits:
- Get full control of your animations: Designers can use After Effects to create custom animations and micro-interactions, tweak transitions, or use video assets in your designs.
- Seamless asset transfer: With this integration, you can enjoy quick asset transfer and native mapping of layers, vectors, and artwork resulting in faster turnaround from design to custom animations.
- Leverage plugins: You can extend your animations and collaboration with developers by using After Effects’ plugin ecosystem tailored for UX design process.
From XD 13.0 onwards, designers with Windows OS can use a USB connection to preview their designs on iOS. For more information, see Preview on mobile devices.
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