Craft Sync for Sketch

The Craft Sync tool for Sketch brings your design environment and InVision together like never before. Sync lets you send your designs into InVision instantly—no saving, exporting, dragging or dropping. Simply select your screens in Sketch, create or choose the prototype or freehand you want to sync to, and easily import all of your screens into InVision.

If using Photoshop, please check out the article Craft Sync for Photoshop.

Syncing prototypes

So you can feel completely comfortable when using Craft Sync to publish prototypes from Sketch to InVision, this section covers the following:

• Organizing artboards before syncing
• Selecting artboards
• Publishing a new prototype
• Updating an existing prototype
• Syncing with multiple users
• Viewing sync progress

Organizing artboards before syncing

To ensure that the organization of your prototype artboards in Sketch is reflected on InVision, you can select your preferred artboard order before publishing the prototype:

• Canvas - Left to right, top to bottom: Your artboards will be organized in InVision just as they are on the Sketch canvas, starting with the first row of artboards on the canvas, moving from left to right before progressing through the second and subsequent rows.
• Canvas - Top to bottom, left to right: Your artboards will be organized in InVision just as they are on the Sketch canvas, starting with the first column of artboards on the canvas, moving from top to bottom before progressing through the second and subsequent columns.
• Alphanumeric: Your artboards will be organized in alphanumeric order (based on the name of each artboard) in InVision.
• Sketch layer list - Top to bottom: Your artboards will be organized in InVision based on the order you've established in the Sketch Layers panel, starting with the top layer and progressing through the bottom layer.
• Sketch layer list - Bottom to top: Your artboards will be organized in InVision based on the order you've established in the Sketch Layers panel, starting with the bottom layer and progressing through the top layer.

This setting only applies when publishing new artboards for the first time. When publishing changes to existing artboards, they will remain in the same order as they currently appear on the web.

To define your preferred artboard order when publishing to InVision:

1. In Sketch, select the artboards you want to sync and click the Craft Sync icon ().
2. In the Craft Manager modal that opens, click the Advanced dropdown arrow.
3. In the Artboard Order dropdown list, select your preferred order.
   
   If publishing a new prototype, be sure to select the appropriate options in the Device type dropdown.
4. Click the Publish button.

Selecting artboards

To sync artboards from Sketch to InVision, navigate to the right-hand toolbar and click the Sync icon (). By default, only selected artboards will be published.

To publish all artboards, make sure no artboards are selected before clicking the Sync icon. Alternatively, you can click the drop-down at the top of the Craft Manager publish modal and select all the artboards.

Even when updating all artboards, Craft Sync will only publish the artboards that you have edited since previously publishing. Because this setting reduces the time required to update your prototypes, it is the default setting. To turn this setting off, in the Mac menu bar, click the Craft Manager icon (), click the settings cog icon (), click Preferences, click the Sync tab, and then click (to uncheck) the Prevent upload of unmodified boards option.

Publishing a new prototype

After clicking the Sync icon, you will see the Craft Manager publish modal. If you have never published a prototype from the Sketch file before, you will be prompted to create a new prototype. You can also select the option Create new. If you want to update an existing prototype, click Select existing.

When publishing a new prototype, you will be required to give it a name and select a device type. Clicking Publish will take you back to the documents tab where you can view the publish progress.

If you are on a Team plan, but you are not the Team owner, new prototypes for your team cannot be published from Craft Sync. First create a new prototype in the InVision web app. You can now return to Craft Sync and sync your Sketch file to that prototype. For more information, check out the article How do I create a prototype on a Team plan?

Updating an existing prototype

If you have published a prototype for the specific Sketch file before, when you click the Sync icon, click the Select existing dropdown to search for and/or select the prototype you want to sync changes to. After double checking your settings in the Advanced dropdown area, click Publish.

If you want to publish an entirely new prototype, select the option Create new.

Clicking Publish will take you back to the documents tab in Craft Manager, where you can view the publishing progress and then copy the prototype link to view it on InVision.

There is no way to unsync screens. If you need to remove screens that have already been synced, you can navigate to your prototype dashboard in InVision and delete the screens. Alternatively, you can create a new prototype and sync your screens again.

Syncing with multiple users

Multiple users can sync as many Sketch files to one prototype as you'd like. Any new content will simply be added as new screens and will not replace the existing content.

Viewing sync progress

After clicking Publish, you can view your publishing progress (as mentioned above) in the documents tab of the Craft Manager modal. There are a few stages of the publishing process that need to complete before your prototype is ready:

1. Exporting Assets: We export all layers marked as exportable so that they can easily be downloaded via Inspect.
2. Extracting Inspect Data: Inspect gives your developers access to all the important information they need when implementing a prototype. During the publish process, we need to extract all this information from the Sketch file.
3. Uploading: Once all data is ready, we upload it all to InVision. Upload times can vary depending on the size of the prototype and your internet speed.

Once your prototype is published, you will see the prototype URL, which you can use to preview the prototype on InVision via the web or the InVision mobile app.

Syncing to Freehand

If using Photoshop, check out the article Craft Freehand for Photoshop.

The Craft Sync tool lets you rapidly capture feedback throughout the product design process. Create a freehand document directly from your design file in Sketch, and then share that freehand with others to begin collaborating in real-time.

Remember, Freehand is an online whiteboard for real-time collaboration and feedback, rather than a prototyping tool like InVision; therefore, you'll have to return to Sketch to edit your screens.

Creating a new freehand

To create a new freehand from a Sketch file:

1. Open your design file in Sketch.
2. Select the artboards you want to sync and click the Craft Sync icon ()
3. Select the option Create New.
4. Enter a name for the new freehand.
5. Choose to sync All Artboards or a Selected Artboard.
6. Click Publish —this will take you to the documents tab, where you can view the publish progress.

From the documents tab, you can copy the freehand link or open the freehand in a new browser tab, and you can begin working on your new freehand.

Updating an existing freehand

To update an existing freehand:

1. Open your design file in Sketch.
2. Select the artboards you want to sync and click the Craft Sync icon ()
3. If you have previously synced a file to a freehand, you’ll see the name of the most recently synced freehand in the Select existing dropdown. To choose a different existing freehand, click the dropdown arrow.
4. Choose to sync All Artboards or a Selected Artboard.
5. Click Publish.

From the documents tab, you can copy the freehand link or open the freehand in a new browser tab to continue collaborating on your freehand in InVision.

Using Freehand in InVision

After creating or updating your freehands in Sketch, you can continue to collaborate on them via InVision. To learn more about how to use Freehand, check out our Getting Started Guide.

Changing your sync settings

Use Craft Manager to adjust your Sketch settings for Craft Sync:

1. Click the Craft Manager icon in your toolbar.
2. Click the cogwheel, then click Preferences.
3. Click Sync (next to General).
4. Edit your sync settings as wanted.

You can adjust these Craft Sync preferences:

• Exported pixel density
• Prevent Craft Sync from uploading unmodified artboards
• Play notification sounds