Adobe Asset Link for Adobe XD

Adobe Asset Link for XD streamlines collaboration between digital product designers and marketers. Use Adobe Asset Link for XD to browse and search digital assets in Adobe Experience Manager Assets from within your XD app. You can also download assets or drag assets to your XD canvas.

Ensure that you meet the following requirements:

Creative Cloud prerequisites

• Named User Licensing
• October 2021 release of Adobe XD
• Adobe Enterprise identity types

Adobe Experience Manager prerequisites

• Experience Manager as a Cloud Service
  
• Experience Manager Assets 6.5 with the latest service packs
• Experience Manager Assets 6.4. with the latest service packs
• Adobe Experience Manager Assets Essentials
  

If you are using an Experience Manager Assets instance other than as a Cloud Service, configure Adobe Experience Manager or Adobe Asset Link.

Set up Adobe Asset Link for XD

Setting up Adobe Asset Link for your designers is easy. Perform the following steps.

1. Create user group

2. Configure Experience Manager Assets

3. Install Adobe Asset Link for XD

Use Adobe Asset Link for XD

You’re ready to use Adobe Asset Link for XD. Create or open a design or prototype in Adobe XD. From the Plugins panel, access Adobe Asset Link for XD.

Use Adobe Asset Link for XD to search, browse, drag, and download assets.

Search and browse assets

Once you open Adobe Asset Link for XD, it displays the files and folders that you have permission to read. You can search and browse digital assets stored in Experience Manager Assets. You can also search for assets stored in your Creative Cloud account:

• To search for assets, folders, or collections, type a keyword in the search field and press Enter. By default, the scope of search is set to All, which means it is a global search. All relevant assets, folders, and collections within Experience Manager Assets are displayed, not just the entities in your current location. Assets in your Creative Cloud Assets account are returned in a separate section below.
• For faster and more targeted results, you can search directly within a folder or collection. First, navigate to the lowest folder or collection that contains the artifact you’re looking for. Then, change the option in the drop-down list to the left of the search field to In Folder or In Collection. Depending on your location, the options in the list change dynamically.
• To close the search results, select [X] in the search field, which brings you back to the location where you were before the search. You can also delete the text manually, and then press Enter.
• To navigate back up the higher sections of the content hierarchy, use the breadcrumb next to Inside. With Adobe Asset Link for XD, you can focus on the drop-down using the keyboard shortcut Shift + B, and then navigate using arrow keys. To select a location, press Enter.

Similar to proprietary assets, Adobe Stock images that reside in Experience Manager Assets, whether licensed or not, are displayed while searching and browsing. Adobe Stock images appear in the same folder location that they reside in within Experience Manager assets along with any proprietary assets.

Unlicensed Adobe Stock images are displayed with an official Adobe Stock watermark. Licensed Adobe Stock images do not have watermarks. All Adobe Stock images include a reference to Adobe Stock in the file's name, and an Adobe Stock icon.

Drag assets

To incorporate an asset on your XD canvas, drag it from Adobe Asset Link for XD to the artboard. A copy of the asset is added to your document.

You can only drag image types that XD supports to be imported. For a list of supported formats, see this document.

Download assets

You can download a copy of an asset in Experience Manager Assets. Open the asset's context menu, from Adobe Asset Link for XD, and choose Download. The file is downloaded to your default download folder.

Manage environments

When you launch Adobe Asset Link for XD, you are automatically connected to the Experience Manager environment that you are entitled to access (applies to cloud-based environments only). If you are entitled to multiple environments, Adobe Asset Link for XD lists all your entitled environments in the Manage environments view.

Depending upon where your assets are stored, you can switch between environments. You can modify the properties of the active environment. You can also add more environments or remove an Experience Manager environment from Adobe Asset Link for XD.

Open the MANAGE ENVIRONMENTS VIEW

To display the Manage environments view, select Manage environments from the Adobe Asset Link for XD menu.

The Manage environments view lists Experience Manager environments added to Adobe Asset Link for XD along with an indication of whether you are authorized to access them. A check mark appears against the environment that you are currently accessing.

SWITCH ENVIRONMENTs

To switch to a different Experience Manager environment, open the context menu of the target environment and select Switch environments.

MODIFY ENVIRONMENT

You can modify the name and URL of any Experience Manager environment that is added to Adobe Asset Link for XD. Open the context menu of the target environment, and select Modify. Edit the name and URL for the environment and select Save. The change is reflected in the Manage environments view.

ADD AN ENVIRONMENT

You can add an environment that your administrator configures for you in the Adobe Asset Link settings file when installing Adobe Asset Link for XD. 

To add a new environment, select + in the Manage environments view.

In the Add Environment dialog, specify a name and the URL of the Experience Manager environment. Then, select Save.

The new environment is listed in the Manage environments view.

REMOVE ENVIRONMENT

You can remove an Experience Manager environment that you no longer require. Open the context menu of the environment that you want to delete, and select Remove.

In the dialog, select Remove to confirm. The environment is removed from the Manage environments view.

Known issues

The following are known issues with Adobe Asset Link for XD:

• Adobe Asset Link for XD does not support filtering assets using the EPS format, because XD doesn’t support this format.
  
• XD only allows https:// connections to Experience Manager Assets instances on macOS, not http://. Use the nGrok utility to map to a localhost deployment of Experience Manager, which runs on HTTP, by default.
  
• Users will encounter the Environment URL unreachable error if they attempt to access an Experience Manager instance for which they don't have the required permissions. To know how to grant permissions in Experience Manager, see Manage user access control on Experience Manager repository.
  
• Users are unable to drag assets of some image formats to XD using Adobe Asset Link for XD even though they appear in the plug-in. Only image types in XD supported formats can be dragged into XD from the plug-in. PSD and AI are supported in XD. However, you cannot drag these files from Adobe Asset Link to artboards. For a list of supported formats, see this document.