Colors and character styles are not included when copied into another document in XD.

[perrybrus]

When I select artboards from one document and paste them in another XD document the assets like colors, character styles and components used to be included in the new document. However after last XD update some of the assets don't get copied and sometimes they all get copied to the new document but they are lost when I save, close and re-open that document. I just copied three artboards from one document to another, then I shared that copied document for development. When I looked at the code specs every asset was included, but when I closed that document in XD and re-opened it the color assets were all gone from the assets panel in XD! This seems so instable and buggy.

W10

XD 30.1.12.4 

<The Title was renamed by moderator>

[HARSHIKA_VERMA]

Hi PerryBrus,

Hope you are safe and healthy at home!

Thank you for reaching out. If I understood you correctly, you are saying when you trying to copy an artboard including colors, assets and character styles into another document, color and character styles are not included into a new document.

I tried to reproduce the same at my end on XD 30.1 version, and yes the colors and character styles aren't included while copy pasting but the components are included.  However, I also checked on the previous version of XD 29.3, and I found out that only the components are included in the file not the colors and character styles so it seems like they were not included in the previous version of XD as well.

Could you please create a short video if  you're not able to see the components as well? 

I will try my best to help you.

Thanks,

Harshika

[Spas K. · Accepted solution]

As far as I remember, it has always worked like that.

When I wanted to carry styles and colors over from another document, I would use the small + icon on the assets panel, which says "Link Assets", and get them from the other document:

This makes sense, because you don't always want to carry over colors and styles from another document when copying an artboard. Maybe you plan on changing them or something else, and you wouldn't want 10 character styles or colors to get mixed with the ones you have in the document you're copying to by default.

[perrybrus]

You could say it makes sense both ways, but I agree that it would be annoying to receive all the assets if your not interested in anything but the artboard itself when copying from one document to another. However, I actually DO receive the character styles and the component when Ctr+C / Ctr+V artboards from one open XD document to another open XD document. The weird thing here is that I don't get the colors with me all the time, but sometimes I do. And when I share the copied document for development (Share for development) the colors are right there in the specs! But they are not in the document itself. So to me this looks like a bug or at least instable behaviour?

[Spas K.]

I see, well in that case it does seem like a bug & inconsistent behavior. I just never remember it happening to me and I can't replicate it now. The components should always carry over imo, as they are actual elements on the page and should stay linked, and are an exception to the logic I mentioned before.

In any case, the best thing would be to probably record video of it, if it happens often enough, so that a bug can be filed, otherwise they'll just say they can't replicate it or something, and it won't get addressed.

[perrybrus]

Yes your right. It's more like inconsistent behavior than unstable behavior. I experience that alot with XD.