Freehand templates
  • 04 Apr 2023
  • 4 Minutes to read
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Freehand templates

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Article summary

Starting with a thoughtfully designed, editable Freehand template can save you considerable time while ensuring design thinking best practices that facilitate powerful collaboration.

The Freehand template gallery showcases a curated set of over 100 templates created by companies like Atlassian, AWS, IBM, Microsoft, Monday.com, and others. Each template in the gallery includes pre-built elements you can copy and paste as needed to re-build the freehand for your team's needs.

Some Freehand templates are only available in InVision V7. To confirm your version, check the upper right corner of your dashboard.

Applying a template

To apply a Freehand template to a new document in InVision V7:

  1. Sign in to your InVision V7 account: your-team-domain.invisionapp.com.
  2. In the Home page, select + Create at the top right corner. A modal opens.
  3. Select one of the featured templates. To see a preview of all available templates, select View all templates in the upper right corner of the modal.

The new freehand with the selected template applied opens.

To apply a Freehand template to an existing document in InVision V7:

  1. Open your Freehand document and select Explore in the toolbar.
  2. Select Templates.
  3. Hover over a template thumbnail on the list to Preview or Insert it. You can also use the search bar to look up a specific template.

To apply a Freehand template to a new document in InVision V6:

  1. Sign in to your InVision V6 account and open the Documents page.
  2. Select the + (create) button to the right.
  3. Select the Freehanddocument type.

    This step looks a bit different depending on whether you're on an Enterprise or self-serve plan.

  4. Enter a name for your freehand, and select Create to confirm.
  5. Select an existing template from the gallery.

The new freehand with the selected template applied opens.

Sharing a template 

The option to share a Freehand template is only available in InVision V7.

Share links allow you to share custom Freehand templates with other team members. You can also use share links to share any Freehand template included in the template gallery with all InVision users, including those not part of your team.

To share a Freehand template using a share link:

  1. Access the Freehand template gallery:
    • In the Home page, select + Create at the top right corner.
    • In a freehand, select Explore >  Templates.
  2. Hover over the template you want to share, select More (•••) and then select Copy share link.
    If you want to preview the template first, hover over the template, select Preview, and then select Copy share link to the right of the template name.
  3. You can now share that link with other users.

It's not possible to share a custom Freehand template with people outside your team.

When viewing templates in the gallery, select Search () to find a template by name, or select a tab in the All templates menu to browse by category.

Explore all Freehand templates by category and role.

Creating, sharing, and editing custom Freehand templates

While archiving and deleting a custom Freehand template works like archiving and deleting InVision V7 documents, the steps for creating, sharing, and editing custom templates are different than for documents.

Create a custom Freehand template

To create a custom template:

  1. Open the freehand you want to use as a template.
  2. At the top-right of the canvas, select More (•••) and then select Save as template.
  3. In the Save as template dialog, enter a name, select a category, add a description, and upload a custom thumbnail (if wanted).
  4. Select Save as draft if you need to keep working on the template or Publish now when you're ready to publish the template and share it with your team.

You can add action buttons to your freehand to enable other users to open Freehand add-ons, integrations, and tools right from the freehand canvas.

All custom templates you publish are automatically added to the Custom templates tab in the templates gallery—where other people on your team can use them. If you save a custom template as a draft, it isn't added to the templates gallery.

Freehands that you publish as custom templates and templates drafts are also included in your Documents list. The blue Template label denotes custom templates and drafts so you can spot them when glancing over your document thumbnails:

Share a custom Freehand template

To share your custom template with others on your team, so they can view or edit it:

  1. Open the template you want to share.
  2. At the top-right of the canvas, select Share.
  3. Select one of the following options:
    • Next to the share link, select Copy text (). You can share this link with other team members.
    • Select the Invite team to collaborate dropdown menu to restrict access rights to the template per individual, as needed.

It's not possible to share a custom Freehand template with people outside your team.

Edit and publish a custom Freehand template draft

To edit a custom Freehand template draft:

  1. Open the template.
  2. Edit the template as wanted.
  3. Select Publish at the top-right of the canvas. 
  4. Edit any details, if wanted.
  5. Select Publish.

Edit details of a custom Freehand template

To edit the details of a previously created custom Freehand template:

  1. Open the template.
  2. At the top-right of the canvas, select More (•••) and then select Edit template details.
  3. Edit as wanted.
  4. Select Save as draft if you need to keep working on the template or Publish now when you're ready to publish the template and share it with your team.

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