Create dynamic designs with stacks

Stacks in Adobe XD enable objects within a group to define fixed spaces between them. When you resize, reorder, or modify objects within a stack, XD automatically preserves the defined space between objects. 

Coupled with padding and responsive resize - stacks make a powerful feature combination that provides more control and speed in design. Stacks applied to components, automate layout, and makes editing of buttons, menus, dropdowns, card-based layouts a breeze.

Ensure that you are familar with basics of content-aware layouts:

• Components
• Responsive resize and constraints
• Padding for components and groups

Limitations

Know these limitations before you get started with stacks:

• If you hover an element with a hover state that grows in size, the background does not resize to fit the new state, and elements in the stack are not pushed away.
• Components cannot act as a background for padding and stacks. Instead, create one component that contains both the content and the background.
• You cannot:
  • Convert special groups into masks or Boolean groups into stacks.
  • Resize stacks in the stack direction.
  • Select a stack element and elements outside of the stack.

Enable stacks

XD automatically determines the stack orientation based on the structure of your group or component. However, if you want to change the stack orientation, select Vertical or Horizontal within the Stack option in the Property Inspector. 

What happens when you enable stacks?

Edit stack elements

After you create stack elements, use any of the following options to edit them:

Move elements or use the Align option                                                     Resize objects and text in the stack

Edit spaces between objects                                                                   Adjust spaces within a stack

Equalize spaces in a stack                                                                        Duplicate elements in a stack

Reorder stack elements

After you create and modify the stack elements, use any of the following options to reorder them:

Create or modify a stack background

When you create a stack, XD automatically determines the background. However, when you enable stacks on a group or component, the layer or group positioned lowest in the stack that overlaps its content, becomes its background.

To create and modify a stack background, follow these steps:

1. Create a shape or group inside the stack that acts as a stack background. You can also create a background outside the stack and copy into the stacked group.
2. From the stack, select the element you want to use as the background.
3. Right-click and select Make Background or Replace Background. The selected element is moved to the end of the stack and resized to fit the size of the stack and padding values.
   

Do more with stack elements

Now that you have learned how to create stacks and work with them, here are some additional pointers on using stacks:

Nest and rearrange stacks

You can achieve a well defined and easy to edit layouts when nesting stacks within one another – for example, a horizontal stack into a vertical stack. You can nest an unlimited number of stacks. Watch the animated illustration to understand how nested stacks work. 

Stacks in components and states

You can apply stacks and padding to components to define reusable UI elements in the context of design systems. When working with components that need a label or a row update, usage of stacks makes the layout of the component react to change and automates manual layout effort. For example, if you have multiple instances with content overrides, use stacks to edit and manage spaces globally. No more manual editing of each card!

Stacks applied to master components are automatically applied to all its instances and states. You can also create a linked component with stacks and edit them. 

How do overrides behave with stacks?

Learn more

"Coupled with padding and responsive resize -- make a powerful feature combination when you’re working in a design system. When stacks are used on a master component, any instance of that component will respect that stacking structure."— Dani Beaumont, Principal Product Manager, XD.

To learn more about getting started with stacks in components and groups, watch this video.

Viewing time: 1 minute.

What's next?

We've got you started on how to use stacks to define spaces between elements. Take a step forward and learn how to create animated prototypes and share them with designers or stakeholders for feedback.

Have a question or an idea?