Move from Adobe XD to Figma While Minimizing Hassle

Are you tired of Adobe XD or interested in using a new tool? If you’ve spent any time in the UI and UX community, you know that countless teams use Figma—but that doesn’t mean switching over to it is the right choice for you.

In this article, we’ll show you exactly how to move from Adobe XD to Figma, what challenges to expect, and why Figma may not be the right design tool for your team.

Moving your design system from Adobe XD to Figma

Changing your tech stack isn’t an easy decision. Doing so can not only have long-term effects on your software costs, but it can also dramatically impact how your team works, both in terms of their productivity and performance.

That being said, switching to a new design tool could be just what you need to improve how your team collaborates at scale. So if you’re committed to switching from Adobe XD to Figma, here’s a step-by-step guide for how to do it:

1. Prepare to make the jump

Changing your design system is a major undertaking, so preparing for the upcoming transition will be crucial to your success—especially if you’re managing a small design team.

First, you’ll want to thoroughly analyze your current system’s scope by cataloging all the screens, components, styles, and assets in your Adobe XD files. Details matter here, so try not skim over anything. Document all your commonly used vector elements, icon libraries, and font assets from Creative Cloud, as well as color palettes, grid settings, and organizational logic.

By carefully assessing all of the components and styles that make up your design , you’ll be able to account for any potential oversights that would undermine your migrated Figma system’s integrity. After all, the last thing you want is for all your hard work to go to waste.

Once you’ve accounted for all your components, gather feedback from your designers on any hidden XD dependencies or unique workflows they’ll need to rebuild in Figma. From there, you can start getting into the nitty-gritty of your migration process.

2. Migrate to Figma

With your XD audit completed, you can start exporting your assets and components into Figma. If you don’t want to do this manually, the Convertify plug-in offers a robust XD-to-Figma conversion tool that translates pages, artboards, layers, and key design elements into an organized Figma file. We highly recommend that you use this tool for the best experience.

Figma’s native options provide only basic single asset transfers that lack context, which would force you and your designers to rebuild all your connections within Figma’s ecosystem. Even simple projects with a few dozen artboards may result in hours of tedious and error-prone reconstruction work per file this way.

For more complex XD documents, manual migration will quickly become unrealistic. Pages that contain hundreds of icons or intricate systems with interlinked symbols can result in days of frustration. So if you want to avoid these pains, using the Convertify plug-in is in your best interest.

A preview of Convertify’s Figma plug-in (Source)

Once you’ve imported all your files and assets, look through your Figma system to make sure you’ve successfully migrated all your components, styles, vector assets, and fonts. You should also check for any compound components that you may need to break apart and rebuild.

You should still expect to perform some minor cleanup work, but you can take advantage of Convertify’s intelligent extraction of nested symbols and component hierarchies. Figma can then incorporate these directly into its libraries and variants.

Your goal here is maintaining fidelity, whenever possible, between XD and Figma and only rebuilding elements when absolutely necessary.

3. Access Figma’s full benefits

With your XD system successfully imported, you can now shift your focus to optimization.

Start by studying Figma’s frameworks, like components and styles, to replace your outdated XD constructs. Then, compare your imported components to Figma’s best practices to improve your naming conventions, organization, and nested structures. You’ll also want to refactor shared styles like colors, effects, grids, and typography to sync properties system-wide via Figma’s unified design constraints.

If you need inspiration, you might consider analyzing how other leading Figma teams structure complex systems and incorporate these learnings into your own. Alternatively, you could reference Figma's UI and UX design tutorials to provide both you and your team, if you have one, with continued education.

The differences between Adobe XD and Figma

After you’ve made the switch from Adobe XD to Figma, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with your new design tech stack. If you’re a first-time Figma user, here are some of the differences you can expect:

Interface and workflow

You may need time to adjust to Figma’s web-based design workspace and unique multi-document structure. Some of Figma’s terminology is also slightly different from Adobe XD’s. For example, Figma uses “frames” instead of XD’s “artboards.”

Similarly, while Figma uses some similar pen, shape, and selection tools, its right-side “properties” panel works differently than XD’s toolbar. Figma’s workflow is also more fluid, allowing you to rapidly iterate on your designs as needed. Sure, this is easier said than done at first, but acclimating to Figma’s UI can positively impact your creative flow.

Features and capabilities

Now, let’s compare some of these tools’ features.

Figma brings unique features like real-time collaboration to the table. This allows multiple designers to simultaneously edit a design file in real-time. Figma’s version history tool also tracks changes more robustly than Adobe’s. Additionally, Figma offers a wider array of plug-ins than XD, with options to migrate Illustrator, Photoshop, and Sketch assets via Convertify.

These features even cater to your team’s developers since Figma allows its users to inspect designs, export code, and track their build progress. If you’re more concerned with sharing your design projects, Figma also eliminates the need to export specs, prototypes, and assets because everything exists under one URL that’s instantly shareable.

Problems with moving from Adobe XD to Figma

Even if you’ve done all your prep work, there’s no guarantee that you’ll experience a smooth transition from Adobe to Figma. In fact, there are a few common problems you may encounter when switching over.

Here are just a few of the problems you can expect and how to handle them:

File compatibility issues

Attempting to import complex Adobe XD files with multiple nested artboards, symbols, and components can cause file translation issues in Figma’s ecosystem. Problems like broken inheritance links, missing fonts, image distortion, and misaligned layout elements often arise due to overcomplicated source files.

As a precaution, you should audit all your XD files before you start converting them to potentially reduce this complexity. Here are a few ways you could simplify the conversion process if you’re dealing with compatibility issues:

• Split documents with over 10 artboards into separate files and organize them by content section or flow.

• Simplify layered images into key assets.

• Consolidate text styles that share identical properties.

• Isolate and extract symbol sets into a single document.

After all this, some of your files still may not convert cleanly. In this case, you should scan Figma thoroughly post-import to catch any distorted elements or layout mismatches. If serious compatibility issues occur, try to identify the problematic sections in your original XD file and convert these subsets independently.

If all else fails and you’re still stuck, contact Convertify support to get help with your files. Its technical team can help you troubleshoot and resolve any difficulties you may encounter.

Learning curve

Most great design tools come with a learning curve. Figma is no exception, especially for design professionals who grew up using Adobe XD’s interface and tools.

To shorten this uncomfortable ramp-up period, you can methodically work through Figma’s introductory guides and video tutorials, which are available on its website.

You can also search Figma’s documentation to learn more about the platform’s workflows, like interaction prototyping, production asset exports, and plug-in integrations, which require different approaches than XD. From there, you can bookmark helpful explainers and quick tips for later reference.

The adjustment period varies from user to user, but to minimize your learning curve, you can try setting personal goals like mastering one new Figma skill per day. After a few weeks, using Figma will become second nature.

Creatie: A Figma alternative powered by AI

Before we talk any more about switching from Adobe XD to Figma, it’s best that we take a step back. After all, is Figma really right for you?

Figma is currently the industry-leading UX and UI design platform, but if you’re a freelancer or are managing a small team, you may want to opt for a more cost-effective alternative that comes with native AI features to speed up your design workflow.

Creatie is the perfect tool for these situations. If you’re still committed to transitioning from Adobe XD, here’s why you may want to consider using Creatie instead:

Creatie makes it easy to migrate your Adobe XD files

Don’t want to rely on Figma plugins like Convertify to migrate your Adobe XD projects? Creatie.ai provides direct native import capabilities that deliver superior results with just one click.

Rather than trying your hand at manual exports or trusting an imperfect program to rebuild your connections, you can simply upload your master XD file directly into Creatie. The platform will then analyze all your pages, artboards, symbols, components, and styles to provide a recommended reconstruction strategy.

Creatie then translates your entire XD ecosystem into a structured Creatie project in minutes—no tedious clean up required. All your colors, character styles, linked symbols, nested components, and original interactions carry over at near 100% accuracy.

Creatie provides a web-based editor

Many design pros are fans of Figma, thanks to its web-based editor. Similarly, Creatie brings unique accessibility to growing design teams with its own browser-based editor.

This means your designers can work fluidly from nearly any location on whatever device is available to them without performance compromises like lag or choppy graphics. Whether team members are joining an editing session from a cramped apartment or a coffee shop between flights, Creatie guarantees a smooth experience for both remote employees and distributed teams.

Creatie’s editor also exists on its servers rather than locally, which maximizes cross-device compatibility. This allows your teams to stay focused on designing rather than worrying about technical configurations—an advantage that is especially helpful for employees who are juggling Mac and Windows environments.

Remaining entirely browser-based also allows Creatie to rapidly deliver instant upgrades across your design projects. So whenever Creatie releases new versions or feature enhancements, they simply appear upon login rather than after disruptive desktop patch processes.

Creatie allows for a collaborative user experience

Like Figma, Creatie allows multiple designers to work within project files at the same time.

To further streamline your team’s workflows, Creatie allows admins to manage members and permissions within project spaces. For example, you can configure these settings to limit specific editors to designated tasks, like prototyping or iconography, when needed.

Creatie runs on AI

Unlike Figma, Creatie features native AI functionality in its platform rather than through a plug-in or third-party app. For example, the Creatie Wizard tool allows users to draw a frame and get instant design inspiration based on their prompts.

The Creatie Wizard tool (Source)

This kind of support will allow your designers to produce higher-quality concepts in nearly half the time. Whether you need help generating an icon, brainstorming UI ideas, or iterating on an existing design, Creatie’s AI design tools make it easy to turn your ideas into reality.

It’s also important to note that this functionality doesn’t come at a steep price, either. Creatie is a much more cost-effective Figma alternative and is suitable for smaller teams that don’t need the full-scale functionality that larger enterprises demand.

Making the switch to Creatie

Want to test out a Figma alternative before making the switch? You can start using Creatie right away with the freemium plan to see if it’s the right choice for your team.

Sign up for free today and find out why Creatie’s powerful AI design tools are a better fit for your team.