How do I publish an Adobe XD project to the web?

Report · Jun 05, 2018

I am a bit confused with choosing the right product and of course justifying the annual cost. Muse it seems is on its way out, so is Dreamweaver the only option? I can get Muse if I google it but it does not feature in the Adobe list of products or under subscriptions. I found XD quite easy to use to build a site but now I am stuck on how to publish it. Please help.

Report · Jun 05, 2018

You will have to use Dreamweaver to convert your design in Adobe XD to a website. Adobe XD is a prototyping tool which allows you to create your initial design without code. After your design is ready, you will have to export your assets and recreate your design in an HTML editor.

Adobe Muse is no longer being developed or sold by Adobe. It will continue to be supported for its existing user base until March 2020.

Thanks,

Preran

Report · Jan 02, 2019

Hi Preran

Given that we now have one less piece of software in the Creative Cloud, and that it has been replaced with a piece of software that essentially replaces paper and a pen, nothing more (Adobe XD), will be be getting a reduction on our fees? Can you explain why so much time and effort is being put into a piece of software that - despite all of Adobe's hype - doesn't really do that much at all? Is it because someone from management has a bee in their bonnet, blinkers on, or has a financial incentive?

Honestly, why on earth would someone waste so much time developing the website with XD and then have to REDO the entire thing again to make it live?

Seems like a completely useless piece of software to me - and for your management guys --> Corel Suite and Webflow are a cheaper alternative, and one that my school will be seriously looking at going forward.

Report · Jan 07, 2019

Just to clarify, XD was never intended as a replacement for Muse. Instead, XD was created for the UX/UI designer, who needs to rapidly iterate and test designs before it's ready for implementation by a developer.

Report · Mar 14, 2019

Hello,

As a manager and team lead for a group of web developers, this kind of thing always cracks me up. It is a running joke in my office when a newbie associate turns in a design from XD, Photoshop, or anything else and says, "Ok developers make this in to a website now thanks!" I turn around and show them a picture of the front of our building and say, "Ok, make this in to a building please - thanks..."

"Whaaaat? How can I do that? You can't make a building out of a picture? I need blueprints, measurements, material specs, color codes..."

That's when everyone starts laughing, because so do we. A prototype that is not exported into raw html and css is absolutely worthless to a Dev team. Developers are the ones who make a website functional. We take the raw HTML / CSS and import it in to our development environment - Microsoft, Java, PHP, or whatever. We take the design and make it dynamic, design and build service / data layers and connect it all together.

What you are speaking about here is the need for a Web Designer - a person. Graphic artists and modelers are great for marketing departments who want to do magazine ads, but a Web Designer is a person who is a skilled graphic artist in a web environment. They create the "web blueprints."

So yes - all software that attempts to take a design and create a functioning website are lousy because they are attempting to take the place of a developer. The code they generate is terrible and hard to deal with later.

I would not expect XD to export as a functioning website, but I would expect it to be able to export a blueprint. But either way it has value in quickly determining the needs of the business and/or client.

The process goes: Model out a site (with XD or a pen and paper), give that model to a web designer to turn it in to it's raw HTML / CSS, and then give it to the developers to make it functional.

All this discussion is around someone attempting to take the place of one of these roles with software, and it exists to a certain extent, but is never as good as an experienced person.

Report · Jan 06, 2020

If your team cannot create html from a screen design you have a very weak team. Taking your example you say that architects are useless right? Adobe XD is an extremely efficient way of creating mockups, layouts and more to discuss them with a client and then to implement them as a website, an app etc. If you would base your development of the layout on a automatically created html your are just bad (sorry for that, bat it's the truth). For example how shall XD know what FE-Framework you're going to use? If you want to use bootstrap for example how shall the grid system be automatically created with all classes? Your answer makes no sense.

Report · Oct 15, 2020

"Whaaaat? How can I do that? You can't make a building out of a picture? I need blueprints, measurements, material specs, color codes..."

I think this comparison is misleading and i don't really get it: In XD we define a canvas with vectors, we define colors, we define shapes. If i would give you a bitmap with pixels... ok. But these are vectors with coordinates, xy, hexcodes, shapes... so why is it so difficult?

Report · Oct 16, 2020

WhaaaT? Did you check this one?:

fotoroeder

Adobe Community-Experte ,

You may not know but webdsigner don`t want to share - we want to publish, that´s why I asked. So even as a webcoder, I need to see in some way the data and the colour and pixel dimensions, where does a web programmer find these datas? Now two kind of people need to learn a new app to get a website to run? As far as I experienced with Muse and Pinegrow I do now use the plugin "web export" which is free so far, and from that generated html one can proceed in any code editor.

Report · Dec 30, 2020

Here is scoopage realized years ago in the advent of the web. Coders are not artists. I had so much frustration trying to explain remotely, what I wanted that I had to create exact layouts (very time consuming) because anyone who is content looking at a screen of code is not a visual learner, yet the egos of "I wanna control the world, I am most vital and downplay the talent of artists because I know better" persist. The job of back end developers is just that, take the direction from the front end who work with marketing to pay your salary, put your ego up your arse, be a team player and make it functional. This new tool from Adobe is great and the only, hopefully short lived hurdle is publishing while relying on a developer. That's where the next money will be made, in that software development.

Report · Dec 30, 2020

Sorry, while relying on a development tool.

Report · Jan 04, 2021

Try to re-imagine the situation here. Imagine this XD can create a fully functioning website and convert the designs into a script and/or "blueprints" that only the DEV's can recognize. Do you think there will still be in need of your service? to be honest, Adobe is doing you a favor and/or respects your profession by not giving XD the whole package. Remember that XD creators are also DEV's, and you know they can make that possible if they wanted to. #justsaying 🙂

Report · Apr 09, 2019

Hi Everyone

I have been forced to move to Dreamweaver to re-do my website, which is a complete pain in the arse. Apart from anything else, it randomly crashes on me, both at work (separate account) and at home. In addition, the CSS Designer disappears whilst you are typing. Dreamweaver also tends to stall for no apparent reason.

If you are going to have to learn HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, why bother with Dreamweaver, it is a bloated piece of software that does exactly what free software like Compozer or Visual Studio Code do. Where I work, we had less problems with teaching people how to develop websites with Visual Studio Code than with Dreamweaver, and it is Free.

With regard to @BurkeAD comment "...with XD or pen and paper..." that tells me that it is not a worth while piece of software to purchase if pen and paper can do the same thing. That is now two pieces of software that we are paying for in the Creative Cloud package that are actually not worth the money. They are little more than fancy padding for a simple function.

The question we are asking where I work is..."given what I have said above, why would we purchase Adobe over other software?"

Carl

Report · Apr 10, 2019

XD and Dreamweaver can be likened to an architect and a builder. The builder does not design and an architect does not build.

Edit: I have tried numerous other products including Visual Studio Code and, over the past 20 odd years, have always returned to Dreamweaver.

Ben
Not a Google fan, use Bing instead.

Report · Oct 26, 2020

Architectural design and building construction are physically different worlds. In case of website, all can be done in the same environment. Adobe Muse was an example. Since more than a decade dozen web design apps have worked in WYSIWYG mode and generated code as well. Adobe has just made a step back. That is why I have turned to another app developer after Muse dead.

Report · Nov 13, 2019

Check out Quest AI plugin for Adobe XD in the Discover Plugins section. It lets you combine artboards into one HTML page directly from XD. Kind of a spiriftual successor to Muse as it lets you add video, animations, interactions, CMS, etc. But it also lets you host the pages you make from XD with it.

http://quest.ai

Check it out 😉

Report · Jan 09, 2020

Hi andrewj710,

quest.ai seems to be not too bad at first but getting deeper, one cannot download the code so quite useless except one takes the advantage of pinegrow, to name just the one I kind of know.

Pinegrow let´s you load a website as a project, save it, edit it and that should be just one workflow possible.

Of course it is limited in some space (50MB - free version) but maybe worth it to give it at least a try.

Kind Regards,

Uwe

Report · Sep 23, 2019

I'm learning how to use Adobe XD. It's a great tool! I have a few questions about this tool

After the Adobe XD prototype is completed and shared with the developers, what happens then? Do the developers take the information in the prototype and start coding around the information provided in the prototype?
Can Adobe XD be used for creating themes for CMS tools such as WordPress?
Does Adobe XD offer an export option to a PDF so I can use the information from within the prototype and use it for a case study either on Behance or my website?
I shared the Adobe XD tutorial to my Adobe Cloud. I opened it on my iPhone Adobe XD app. I see the XD file but I can't close the file shared. Why is that? What happens if I upload several Adobe XD files to the Adobe Cloud? Does the iPhone Adobe XD app allow me to view various projects from my iPhone? Am I correct, in that, the Adobe XD iPhone app is for viewing only? This would be the same for an iPad device, correct?
Can Adobe XD be used for designing prototypes for Adobe Captivate and Adobe Animate?
Can Adobe XD be used for desining page layouts for Adobe InDesign, or is that not the correct way to use this tool.

Report · Sep 23, 2019

To answer my question about my iPhone keeping the Adobe XD file opened, after doing a force quite I now see that Adobe opens the Adobe XD app in the Clud Documents folder, allowing me to choose from the different uploaded Adobe XD files. 🙂

However, I am unable to close it. I see a function that states I have to use a UBS cable to connect my iPhone to my Mac. Perhaps this is problem. I will follow these directions.

Report · Sep 23, 2019

Hi, Yes generally once the prototype is handed to developers they start coding and doing what ever it is they need to do to create a working app/webpage.
Yes you could use XD to create the design of themes, but it would take more to implement them into the CMS.
Yes Adobe XD has an export to PDF option.

Your second post suggests you've answered this one for yourself. Yes the mobile device app is for viewing only.
You could use Adobe XD to design the concept for anything, but it's not necessarily the best solution for all.
If you're designing print layouts you could use XD but it might be just as quick to go straight into InDesign.
You could design concepts for Captivate and Animate, but if you're building them yourself again it might be quicker to go straight into those apps. It could definitely be helpful if you had to send designs and concepts off to others to build in those apps though.

Report · Mar 21, 2018

What does normally follow after XD? What does one have to do to get a website, is there a proper way?

Thanks in advance,

Uwe

Report · Mar 21, 2018

What are you looking to publish?

You can share the prototype via an icon in the upper right. The same for the Design Specs as well.

Otherwise, you can export the assets to your computer and then hand it over to a developer to build your item.

Chris

Report · Jun 02, 2020

You may not know but webdsigner don`t want to share - we want to publish, that´s why I asked. So even as a webcoder, I need to see in some way the data and the colour and pixel dimensions, where does a web programmer find these datas? Now two kind of people need to learn a new app to get a website to run? As far as I experienced with Muse and Pinegrow I do now use the plugin "web export" which is free so far, and from that generated html one can proceed in any code editor. At least Pinegrow works with it but Dw and all the others out there might work, too. Sharing doesn`t solve the problem and like this, at least in my opinion the answer is not correct. Sharing is like sending an E-Mail to get a job done, the job does not get done.

Kind Regards,

Uwe

Report · Mar 21, 2018

Hey Uwe,

To answer precisely XD is just an interface designer.

Like previously we used Photoshop for designing and wireframing our (website, phone apps, application interfaces etc.) and later share the design with a developer so he can code the same design.

Now we have created an app called XD where you can create your static web designs, and also show how it will interact with the end users.

The design which is finalized by the client can be later shared with a developer and he will put them into codes.

Regards,

Ankush

Report · Mar 25, 2018

Hi Chris W. Griffith ,

thanks for the answer.

Hi ankushr40215001, you know why I ask, don`t you?

Thanks for pointing this out.

Best Regards,

Uwe

Report · Apr 06, 2018

To create a static web design without the means to directly export it into code seems like an unfinished app to me. As an independent graphic designer of many different mediums with only minimum knowledge of actual web code, the last thing I want to do is increase my cost of a project by requiring a developer? I certainly hope Adobe does not plan to leave it's Creative Cloud members without the means to complete a project independently that it can deliver to it's clients. Otherwise, what's the point of paying for the software every month if it doesn't do everything I need it to do?

Adobe Support Community

How do I publish an Adobe XD project to the web?

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