Export and download assets from design specs

If you mark layers for export and include assets when publishing design specs, you can download them from the published design specs link. Vector assets are available in SVG, PNG, PDF, and JPG formats while bitmap assets can be exported in PNG, PDF, and JPG formats.

Mark layers for export

Layers marked for export are included as assets in design specs. To mark assets for export, select any layer on canvas, and use any of the following options: 

• Click any artboard layer and click Mark for Export check box from the pop-up menu. 
• Right-click the layer on the canvas and choose Mark for Export from the pop-up menu. 
• Use the  keyboard shortcut in macOS and   keyboard shortcut in Windows OS.
• Open the layers panel and click the   mark for export icon next to the layer name. 

To export multiple assets, select multiple layers within an artboard and click Mark for Export.

Publish design specs with assets

When you include assets while publishing design specs and share the published link with developers, you provide them with a centralized location to download those assets.

Download assets from design specs

If you are a developer, you can download assets from the published design specs link shared with you. You can download all the downloadable assets on an artboard at the same time in the screen details view. You can also download assets individually in the layer details view.

Screen details view

When you click outside an artboard, you are in its screen details view. 

In the screen details view, you see all the downloadable assets categorized as images, video, animations, and audio in the Assets section of the Property Inspector.

To download assets, do the following in the Assets section:

1. Click to select the assets you want to download together:

• To multi-select, you can use Shift.
• To select all the assets of an asset category, click one asset, and then use Cmd+ A or Ctrl+A.

The Assets Selected section appears, showing the number of selected assets, categorized as images, video, and audio.

2. Click Download.

Assets are downloaded as .zip files in the Downloads folder on your machine. When downloading images, you can change the format of vector images to SVG, PDF, PNG, and JPG, and the format of bitmap images to PNG, PDF, and JPG.

Things to watch out for

• If you hover over video and audio assets in the Assets section, you see their file extension.
• On an artboard, if there are multiple copies of a video, you will see only one instance of that video in the Assets section. When you hover over a video in the Assets section, you will see all the instances of that video highlighted on the artboard.
• On an artboard, if multiple videos have the same cover image, you see each instance of that cover image in the Assets section.
• When you download assets from different categories together, the downloaded .zip folder will have subfolders for those categories.
• You can download video files only in the same format that designers have imported into their XD design document. To learn about supported video formats, see Work with videos.
• In the screen details view, for a given component, only its last-inspected state or the active state will appear in the Assets section for you to download. To download assets for all states, select the component layer on the artboard and switch to the layer details view.

Layer details view

When you select a layer on an artboard, you switch to the layer details view. In the layer details view, you can download assets only for the selected layer.

To download an asset in the selected layer, click Download next to the asset in the Assets section of the Property Inspector.

Video Download

When you select a video layer on an artboard:

• You can download the video and the poster image.
• If the video is wired to audio playback, you can also download that audio file.

Lottie Download

When you select a Lottie layer on an artboard:

• You can download the Lottie animation as a JSON file.
  
• If the Lottie is wired to audio playback, you can download that audio file.

Component download

To download assets for a component, select the component on canvas. Then, in the Property Inspector, switch to each state to download asset for it.

In the XD app, if the designer marks multiple instances of a component for export, only the last instance in the Layers panel will be exported.

Download experience for XD 44 and later versions

For links published from XD 44 and later versions:

When you click Download, you get a dialog showing the progress. Once the download completes, you can resume inspecting artboards or navigating from one artboard to another.

If you get an error when downloading assets, ask the designer to republish the link and share it again.