Symbols 
can speed up your workflow by giving you a way to save and reuse common elements across your designs. When you make changes to a Symbol, those changes appear everywhere you use it in your designs. You can also create overrides for specific parts of individual Symbols.
Creating a Symbol
To create a Symbol, select a layer, frame, graphic, group, or multiple layers and choose Create in the toolbar, Layer > Symbol > Create Symbol in the Menu Bar, or press ⌘Y. Give your Symbol a name and choose whether to send its Source version to a separate Symbols page, or keep it on the page you’re currently looking at.
Creating a Symbol creates a Source and a reusable instance at the same time.
Symbol Sources and Instances
When you create a Symbol, we’ll create both a Source and an Instance of it. You can create as many instances of the same Symbol as you like, but you’ll only ever have one Source. If you make a change to a Source this will also show in any instances of that Symbol in your document.
Any change to a Symbol Source reflects immediately in all its instances.
If you choose Send Symbol to Symbols page, you’ll see a new page above the Layer List called Symbols. In here, you’ll find your Source.
If you didn’t choose to send the Symbol to the Symbols page when you created it, it will stay on the current page, with a purple highlight and name to make it clear it’s a Symbol Source.
Turning a Symbol back into layers
To turn a Symbol back into regular layers, select the Symbol’s Source in the Layer List and choose Layer > Symbol > Remove Symbol Source, or press ⌘⇧Y. Any instances related to it will become groups and editing the Source will no longer change those instances.
Replacing a layer with a Symbol
To replace any regular layer with a Symbol, Control-click it and choose Replace with Symbol, head to Layer > Symbol > Replace with Symbol in the Menu Bar, or search for Replace with Symbol in the Command Bar. Choose a Symbol from the list — the instance will resize to fit the layer’s bounds.
Creating nested Symbols
Nested Symbols give you finer control over complex designs. For example, a nested Symbol can take the place of a design element, such as a logo, within a larger Symbol like a banner. This way, any edits you make to your logo will automatically reflect on your banner’s Symbol Source.
There are two ways to create nested Symbols:
- Insert an instance into a Source — go to your Symbols page and insert a Symbol instance inside another Symbol. When you edit that instance’s Source, it’ll update everywhere, including inside the parent Symbol.
- Convert existing Sources — select two or more Symbol Sources on the Canvas and choose Create Symbol in the toolbar, or press ⌘Y.
There’s no limit to how many Symbols you can nest within a Symbol Source. However, you can’t use a Symbol instance inside its own Source.
If you have selected a nested Symbol, or a layer inside another Symbol, you can select the parent Symbol using Edit > Select > Select Containing Symbol (⇧⎋).
Using nested Symbol overrides
For even greater customization, you can create other versions of your nested Symbol to use as overrides. For example, you can turn several icons into nested Symbols. Then, whenever you want to swap one icon with another, you can select it from the Nested Symbols section of the Inspector.
Swap icons and other nested elements directly from the Inspector — without touching the Source.
To focus on a nested Symbol’s overrides, click the chevron 
next to it in the Inspector.
Overrides for nested Symbols reflect the structure of the nesting. The Selection section organizes overrides by type using tabs — Colors, Nested Symbols, Text & Text Styles, and Images. You can override these by selecting the entire Symbol instance, or selecting the individual nested Symbols or layers within the Symbol to override specific elements.
Inserting Symbols
To browse and insert Symbols, you can either:
- Switch to the Components View
- Press Y to launch the Command Bar’s Symbols view.
Use the Command Bar to find and insert any Symbol by name.
Components View
Switch to the Components View by clicking on the tab in the top-left of the toolbar (you can also use ⌃1 and ⌃2 to toggle between the Canvas 
and the Components View , respectively).
By default, you’ll see all the Symbols in your document. You can filter this view by clicking on any groups you’ve created for your Symbols in the left sidebar. You can also use the search bar at the top right of the Components View to quickly find the Symbol you’re looking for. Once you’ve found the Symbol you want, click Insert in the toolbar or Control-click on it and choose Insert to place it onto your Canvas.
Editing Symbols
There are two main ways to edit a Symbol. You can edit the contents in the Symbol Source, or you can edit individual instances with overrides.
Editing a Symbol Source
To edit a Symbol Source, select any instance on the Canvas and press ⌘⏎ or click 
Edit Source in the Inspector. You can also go directly to the Symbol Source’s frame on the Canvas or Symbols page and edit the layers there.
Press ⌘ and click inside a Symbol to instantly select a nested Symbol or a shape you’re using as a background. After doing so you’ll see a Back to Parent button on the top left of your selection — click the button, or press ⎋, to return to the parent Symbol again.
Any edits you make to the Source will sync to any instances of it in your design. If you navigated here from an instance, click Return to Instance when you’re done to go back and see your changes reflected there.
One edit to the Source updates every instance across the document.
Overriding prototyping Hotspots
The Inspector also shows all available Hotspots in the Interactions section. If you’ve added a Hotspot 
to your Symbol Source or instance as part of a prototype, you can override its target frame, or select None to disable it.
Detaching a Symbol Instance from a Symbol Source
To make edits to an individual Symbol instance without using overrides, you’ll need to detach it from its Source by choosing Layer > Symbol > Detach from Symbol from the menu or pressing ⌘⇧Y. You can also Control-click on a Symbol instance and choose Detach from Symbol there.
Right-click on any instance to detach all contents from the Symbol Source. This will convert any instance, and any nested Symbols it contains, to a frame. You can also detach content from a Symbol by pressing ⌥⇧⌘Y or heading to Layer > Symbol > Detach all Contents from Symbol in the Menu Bar.
Detaching converts the instance to a frame, leaving the Source and other instances untouched.
Swapping Symbols
You can swap Symbols using the popover in the Inspector. Choose a Symbol from the list or search for the Symbol you’re looking for and click to swap it with the currently selected Symbol.
Swapping a Symbol via the Replace popover in the Inspector.
By default, swapping a Symbol will resize the instance you‘ve selected to fit its new Symbol Source. To keep the instance size the same when you swap Symbols, deactivate the “Preserve current dimensions when replacing” option in the Replace popover.
Scaling and resizing Symbols
You can scale and resize Symbols like any other layer using the Scale command. Choose Layer > Transform > Scale from the menu (or press K). Styles and properties like borders will increase or decrease in proportion with the Symbol Instance itself, without affecting the Source.
Organizing Symbols
Creating Symbol groups
To group Symbols together in the Components View and Command Bar, name them using the format: Group-name/Symbol-name. For example, two Symbols named Button/Normal and Button/Pressed will become part of a group named Button.
You will need to have two or more Symbols in a group before they’ll appear in their own submenu.
Organizing Symbols in the Components View
You can also organize your Symbols via the Components View . To group several Symbols together, hold ⌘ and select the ones you want to group. Control-click on any of them and choose Group in the contextual menu. Give the new group a name by double-clicking on it 
in the left sidebar of the Components View.
To rename a single Symbol, click on it and rename it using the Inspector. To rename a group, double-click on the group name in the left sidebar.
You can also add a Symbol to an existing group by dragging it to the left sidebar.
Group Symbols in the Components View to keep them organized.
Symbols in the Components View are ordered alphabetically. You can also assign search keywords to any component to make it easier to find without knowing its exact name.
Using the Symbols page
Sending Symbol Sources to the Symbols page can help keep things organized, especially with complex designs. It also helps to reduce confusion between using a Symbol Source or instance.
To manually move a Symbol Source, drag it onto the Symbols page title in the Layer List, or Control-click on it and choose Send to “Symbols” Page.
