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Participating Frequently
April 19, 2018
Answered

Inserting an external link in Xd

  • April 19, 2018
  • 27 replies
  • 101559 views

Hello,

I'm trying to insert an external link to a button in Xd (a web site URL or an e-mail adres) and can't find the function. Is there an option to do that in Xd?

Please help!!

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer HARSHIKA_VERMA

Hi All,

 

Happy New Year!

 

The wait is over, with today's latest XD update, you can now create hyperlinks in XD. Please see this article: https://helpx.adobe.com/xd/help/create-hyperlinks.html for more info.

 

Check out our What's new page for more feature updates.

 

Please update XD to 47 version and share your experience with us by creating separate posts on the related topics.

 

We will be happy to help. We appreciated your patience.

 

Thanks,

Harshika

 

 

27 replies

Participant
January 14, 2021

I am frankly baffled as to why this is wasn't an MVP feature for a PROTOTYPING application. It would be like selling a phone which is capable of dialing numbers 2-9 but if you need 1 or 0... sorry you'll need a plugin for that.

I like Adobe products in general and I am not trying to come off as crass or rude. However, core feature holes such as this one, multi year response times, and the fact that components are still completely broken and unusable in a heavily marketed production build of XD are why Figma is going to eat your lunch in this vertical Adobe.

Rule72
Participant
December 3, 2020

Bump. I'm surprised this isn't a feature already... and also sadly unsurprised that this isn't implemented when there are 3 pages of requests already lol.

Participant
November 10, 2020

Hi there, 

I thought of a simple way to make it seem like a link has been added. I used social media icons as jpg images (for example Pinterest) and linked from the social media icon to an external page by simply taking a screenshot of the external page (in this instance, my Pinterest page) and copy + pasted it to another artboard in xd. I found that if doing this, it is best to place the 'external link artboard' underneath your main work as this doesn't seem to interfere with the main body of work. 

Hope this helps 😊

Fraitz
Inspiring
June 3, 2020

I have trouble with the VERY BIG FILE SIZE of my prototypes. If I build one entire software prototype in just one XD file it will become very big, I'll start having trouble with my hardware witch get very slow on doing simple tasks. If I build 1 file for each feature or screen of my software and link them with a external link, this problem is solved. My files would become smaller and my computer would work fine without slowing on simple tasks like create a button or a card. 

 

I thnik nobody wanna build a software or a website in a PROTOTYPING tool, but the PROTOTYPING tool need solve simple questions like the need of build a BIG PROTOTYPE. 

And look ... this is so easy! You already have something like that in Adobe AC

Known Participant
May 22, 2020

First, consider linking between different prototypes (different xd prototype urls). For example, adding a prototype ID as a destination value of a link.
Second, please consider enabling Add-ons to customise links, if you do not want to develop this as an official feature, let plugins care about that. 
 

HARSHIKA_VERMA
Community Manager
Community Manager
May 27, 2020

Thank you for sharing your ideas and feedback. I hope you have already upvoted the request and submitted your feedback and ideas to the UserVoice link.

 

I will also make sure to share your feedback with the team. I can see the status of the request is under review. Please stay tuned to the UserVoice page for updates.

 

Thanks,

Harshika

ryan.1.johnson
Participating Frequently
April 18, 2020

What's going on with the request? Has this feature been added? 

Peter Villevoye
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 19, 2020

Not yet, and probably not soon...

When I read the first page of recent comments to the request on Uservoice, I see most users are looking for this feature in order to "create a website" or "hook it up to Facebook" etc. This is not the intention of Adobe XD, as I explained earlier, so those users will never get what they want or come up with after each new feature.

 

But I'd like to know on a personal note (I'm never speaking on behalf of Adobe or their team of developers), what would be the purpose of this external linking ? What would you expect to happen ? Suppose you're working on a home page, and there's a textual link or button referring to a "Make Donation" page, which already exists and is not part of the test. But you'd like to hook it up anyway, for the sake of the perceived continuity. Is that a possible situation ?

 

How would you like the test to act, in a browser (typically from a shared reviewers link), and an mobile devices (in the XD app) ? Should the browser viewport completely change to the linked URL (hence, leave the Adobe testing platform) or display the linked URL within the rendered testing part, as an iframe ? And how to go back ? And in the XD app, should the app switch to a real browser, or also try to display the web content within the app's screen ?

 

What implementation and behavior would be desirable and technically viable ?

 

BTW, Harunharun describes in his reply another scenario for linking, which is a much more plausible feature to be implemented !

Participant
April 30, 2020

Simple - linking several prototypes together - let's say you are running out of Artboard space - or want to have a complex prototype running - any other prototyping tool out there support that - you wouldn't use is to ''create a website'' coz is clearly branded and mark as an Adobe XD prototype.

years after this feature hasn't been added .... get it together Adobe .....

Participant
February 13, 2020

"Solved" and "Correct answer" should be two separated status of an answer. It could be a correct answer, but the feature is still not solved, like in this case. Come on Adobe. If we make a list of requested features ordered by major number of requests slash the least effort, this feature would be at the top.

For me this is not about adding a link to youtube or whatever external website, which essentialy would not add any value in the review/testing process. What I need this feature for is to link prototypes between them. Sometimes we manage separated files for separated environments (ex. ecommerce and admin are two separated XD files with separated prototype URLS). It is also useful when sharing a link to stakeholder to be able to send one link and not seven.

 

Peter Villevoye
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 8, 2020

I wonder if this has (and should have) any priority...

The goal of XD is to let designers create a mockup, a prototype at best. So if you want to show how a button or anything serves as a link to a website or an email, add an artboard with a screenshot to mimic this behavior, and hook it up with that button. It's all a matter of make-believe, not to make it work for real...

Participating Frequently
May 22, 2020

@Peter Maybe it's not what you (or Adobe) intends to do with XD but about the way your users are using it! Your're right: usually we just design Websites or Apps with Tool like Sketch and XD. But yesterday I rapidly built up a onepage website as a menu for a restaurant … And I was thinking by mayself „why don't they combine their tools to one ecosystem? Why don't they have the posibility to hand over XD-Designed Sites to Dreamweaver or things like that … ?“ It feels a bit arrogant when you try to tell your users in which way they have to use your tool … I think you should have a look at the bigger picture and should work much harder on XD … just to get closer to Sketch … or to create a new type of standard!

Peter Villevoye
Community Expert
Community Expert
May 23, 2020

My perceived "arrogance" might be rooted in 34 years of using a mixed bag of tools of Adobe (and a few other brands) for various kinds of print and interactive media, and 28 years of experience with designing for the web (and about a decade for apps). I also once wished and expected tools to converge into one. I also thought having one tool or method to professionally design, create, produce, and publish print media, videos, websites, or apps would be fine. I've seen the many "Bigger Pictures" of various digital media ecosystems by now, but it didn't turn out that way. It never will...

 

For your onepager you could be happy with WixSquarespace or one of the zillion WordPress templates. But beware, client always want more...

FuturelineMediaDenmark
Participating Frequently
February 8, 2020

Wheeeeeeeeeeeen!!!?? 😫😫😫

FuturelineMediaDenmark
Participating Frequently
January 10, 2020

Hi Preran

Is it possible that it not yet an option to add en external link? That's unbelievable. When will this feature or plug in arrive? I see that it has been underway for three years!

shreyasirudra
Participant
February 7, 2020

Hi Preran

Is there a plugin for this feature yet in XD?

I second FuturelineMediaDenmark it has been underway for three years!

 

It is much needed!!!!