Unable to change the order of the artboards in Adobe XD

[altedie]

This appears to be a bug. I specify an order to the pages in prototype, save, update the design review link, and the order of pages at the link is the order in which the artboards were created, not the prototype order.

{Renamed By MOD}

[Rishabh_Tiwari]

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out. Could you please try the step shared in this discussion: https://community.adobe.com/t5/adobe-xd/adobe-xd-won-t-let-me-change-the-order-of-the-artboards/td-p...

Let us know if this helps or if you need any further assistance.

Regards

Rishabh

[altedie]

Hi, adding numbers to the artboard names did not fix the problem.

I also noticed if I have an artboard and want to exclude it from the prototype/link I cannot.

[Peter Villevoye]

The Design Review will automatically include all the linked artboards necessary for the prototype to work, and exclude those which are not necessary (hence unlinked). You can see which artboards are involved (blue outlined ones), while setting the Share options. The order in which they are eventually presented with the arrows left/right doesn't reflect the way how they are positioned on your Design and Protoype canvas.

[altedie · Accepted solution]

Thanks Dan, I ended up deleting the artboard that was giving me issues and was not able to replicate the problem or see if it was greyed out on Share mode.

The main problem I was having was the order of artboards. They were out of order (spatially) but linked in the order I wanted under Prototype. I decided to reorder them spatially to see if that made any difference, and in doing so I noticed one of the boards had a faded back blue arrow, I guess indicating it was leading to two places. I'm only linking artboards to artboards, no interactive elements within the boards, so logically having it go two places doesn't make sense. I unlinked that artboard and relinked it and now the order is fixed in share.

I did not see the "double arrow" before, so I'm not sure if there was an error where it was not displaying or if that's just human error on my part. Anyway moving the artboards around helped me see what was going on.

[Peter Villevoye]

Who is Dan ?? 😉

Anyway, the multiple arrows are possible since a couple of versions ago. They indicate different triggers. A tap can Transition to one screen, and a drag can perform an Auto-animate. See (and set) the Interaction panel in the Properties. Or simply hit the Delete key when one of the arrows is selected, to get rid of it...

[altedie]

Haha whoops! Interesting, thanks for the info Peter.

[BDT3]

This wasn't an answer - it isn't a fix and it isn't fixed..

The issue is the numbering of the artboards in several use cases cannot be updated:

1. You order the artboards in design mode for the layout and workflows you settle upon

2. You order them on the left hand layers list

THE PROBLEM IS:

3. The numbering on the shared link represents the order in which you created the artboards it seems - that is a very random set of numbering like 32,5,63,5,8 etc not the numbering you have ordered them in.
4. The export to PDF follows this same ordering chaos.

THE FIX WE WANT:

Is to reset the numbering to follow the order of the artboards, as they are now, not as they were created in (at least that's what I think is happening.)

...and lastly, as pointed out in the threads, this is ridiculous...

[Peter Villevoye]

Well, the original poster was happy enough with the above explanantions and suggestions. And she considered it done. But you're not content, yet.

There are several uses cases and purposes for having a certain order in the artboards.

The initial one is their ergonomic view on the canvas. That's an almost arbitrary one, spatially defined.

Then there's the Design and Developer Review (perceived as the prototype flows), mixed with a forced linear order for the artboard thumbnails underneath, in a left to right top to bottom sequence, as spread out on the canvas.

When exporting the artboards as a PDF, the sequence also follows this order.

It's indeed, a mess !

And it will never be satisfying enough to many or even anyone, to simply turn that spatial ltr/ttb into a PDF order. A design easily grows beyond just one row of artboards.

Using the list in the Layer panel would be a very good approach ! This order isn't used for anything else than the panel itself and the Z-index (stacking order) for the artboards. But since no one will be suing overlapping artboards, why not make it useful for the PDF ?

There are already two User Voice feature requests out there:

https://adobexd.uservoice.com/forums/353007-adobe-xd-feature-requests/suggestions/19515538-manage-ar...

https://adobexd.uservoice.com/forums/353007-adobe-xd-feature-requests/suggestions/35488336-export-to...

The latter describes the method of using the Layers panel order.

Hope this helps improving the functionality, soon.

In the meantime, it's relatively easy to shuffle artboards/pages afterwards in the PDF in Adobe Acrobat or even Preview (on a Mac).

[Tawny16B6]

I'm having issues with this same bug.  I have reordered the art boards.  They are in order left to right, they are numbered, I have built a prototype which articulates which order they are meant to go in, they preview in the order they are in the project, and the order I have built the prototype in, but but the link puts the last art board first.  It was never first, it was always last.  The idea that the design review refuses to follow the built prototype is an extremely frustrating bug, and makes XD unworkable.   

[altedie]

I still have this problem from time to time, and sometimes I can fix it by removing all links in the prototype view, and then readding them.

[Rishabh_Tiwari]

Hi there,

Sorry to hear about the trouble. Could you please share a screenshot capturing the artboards in prototype mode? We'll also need the version of XD. We'll try our best to help you with it.

Regards

Rishabh