Figma tips and tricks you might not know about
Ignore constraints
With constraints you can set items to stick to the left, right, or center of their parent frame — or to stretch. Constraints are one of the best things about Figma. However, sometimes you’ll want to ignore these rules. If you resize a parent frame while pressing the ⌘ key, the constraints set on the children will be ignored.
⌘ keyPasting SVG code
If you open SVG code in a text editor or browser you can copy the code and paste it straight into Figma, rather than needing to download the SVG as a file to your computer and then uploading it. If you’re optimizing your SVGs, SVGOMG (an online SVG optimization tool) lets you copy the markup to your clipboard — which can then be pasted into Figma.
Customize nudge sizes
At giffgaff, where I work, we have established a spacing scale to ensure consistency for margins and padding values. It’s common for a spacing system to increment in steps by a certain value — you’ll see 4px, 5px, 6px, 8px, and 10px increment systems in different design systems. At giffgaff we use 8px, so our scale is 8px, 16px, 24px, etc. To enforce this within Figma, we can select preferences, then Nudge Amount, and set the large nudge value to 8px.
This large nudge amount can be used when moving things around the canvas by pressing the shift key. You can also use this large nudge value when scrubbing through values, again by pressing the shift key.
Auto layout
If you haven’t kept up with the latest Figma features, here’s a tip from the official Figma Twitter account:
Measuring distances
Holding down the alt/option key while hovering will show measurements between elements.
Resize a text frame
Search through all Figma commands
If you prefer to type rather than clicking the menu, you can search through all Figma commands using the key command ⌘ + /
Making selections
Selecting elements with similar properties
From the edit menu you can select objects with the same fill, font, or text. You can also select all instances of a component. If you wanted to change one of your fonts, for example, you could easily select all text objects that share the old font style you want to change, then change the font for all of them at once.
Selecting nested or grouped elements
If you have groups within groups, or frames within frames, or frames within groups within frames, selecting the nested content can involve a lot of double clicking. If you want a more immediate way to select whatever element your cursor is hovering over, press cmd and click. You can also cmd and drag to select multiple items within a group.
Key commands
Learning keyboard shortcuts is a great way to improve productivity with a design tool, and Figma offers plenty. Some will already be familiar to people coming from Sketch, for example:o to draw a circle (or oval),r to draw a rectangle,l to draw a line,t to write text.
There are plenty of others that I find useful:
f to create a frame
option + 1 and 2 move between layer and component library views
option + 3 brings up the team library modal
option + 8/9/0 will flip between design/prototype/code tabs
shift + x for swap fill and stroke
press i for the color picker
shift + v flip vertical
shift + h flip horizontal
⌘ + option + k to create a component
⌘ + option + b to detach an instance of a component
If you need to use emoji in your design, you can bring up an emoji selection modal with the command ⌘ + control + space.
If you want more, there’s a great resource built into Figma — just press the question mark button in the bottom right of the screen and select Keyboard Shortcuts to see a handy list. Alternatively, Figma Ninja is a fun way to learn.
Built in batch-renaming
⌘ + r is the key command to rename a layer. If you select multiple layers you can rename them all at once.
Working with vectors
For advanced vector work you’ll want to use a dedicated tool like Adobe Illustrator. However, Figma itself can still do a fair bit. Here’s another tip from the official Figma account.
