Using Craft by InVision

Craft is a free plugin for Photoshop and Sketch that helps streamline your design workflow by automating tedious actions and pulling in more realistic sample data. Craft consists of the following tools:

• Duplicate: Quickly copy and arrange a layer in no time at all.
• Data: Bring real text, images, JSON, and live web content to your prototype, helping make your prototypes feel real without spending time making mock data within the app.
• Sync: Send your designs into InVision instantly- no saving, exporting, dragging or dropping. Simply select your screens in Sketch or Photoshop (for macOS and Windows), choose the prototype you want to sync to, and easily import all of your screens into InVision.
• DSM: Design System Manager (DSM) offers a unified way to design at scale by helping teams create, maintain, and evolve a powerful design system.
  
• Freehand: Rapidly capture feedback throughout the product design process in a real-time, flexible, and collaborative way.
• Prototype: Create interactive prototypes in Sketch via Craft Sync to build and share in minutes.
• Stock: Powered by Getty Images, Stock makes it easier than ever to search, comp, and place premium, high-resolution imagery in your designs.

Craft Manager

Craft Manager is an app that lives the Mac menu bar. With this app, you can install new Craft tools, update existing tools, and manage settings.

Install Craft Manager

Craft is available for download from InVision. Once you’ve downloaded it, you can install it by doing the following:

1. Double-click the CraftManager.zip file you downloaded to extract Craft Manager.
2. Double-click the Craft Manager icon in your Downloads folder.
   A new window appears asking if you’d like to move Craft Manager to the Applications folder.
3. Make your selection, and Craft Manager will install into the appropriate folder.
4. To open Craft Manager, click the Craft icon () in the Mac menu bar.
   

   

5. Select either Photoshop or Sketch and click Install to install each tool.

After that, you can sign in to your InVision account and start using all Craft tools in Sketch or Photoshop.

For Windows, you’ll need to download the Craft Sync Windows Installer in order to use the Craft Sync tool.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I check for Craft updates?

To learn more about checking for updates in Craft, read this article: How do I check for Craft updates & version numbers?

What versions of Photoshop and Sketch do you support?

Craft supports the following:

• The two most recent major versions of Photoshop
• The two most recent non-beta versions of Sketch

For the best experience, we recommend downloading the newest non-beta version of Sketch.

Why can't I install Craft Manager?

If you try to install Craft Manager using the instructions above and you see the Something went wrong error message, that means something in the install process failed, and you’ll need to manually install the manager using these instructions:

1. Download Craft Manager directly.
2. Delete Panels.app from your Application folder.
3. Drag and drop CraftManager.app to your Application folder.
4. Launch the Craft Manager app.

Installation of Craft Manager might also be failing if you don't have admin rights on the machine you’re using to install Craft. If you don’t have admin rights, please work with your IT team to get the correct permissions or to have Craft Manager installed.

What operating systems are supported by Craft Manager?

We recommend using Craft Manager with the 2 most recent major versions of macOS: Big Sur (11) and Catalina (10.15).

Is Windows still supported by Craft?

Going forward, with the exception of Craft Sync, the rest of the Craft tools will only be available for macOS. You’re welcome to continue using the current version of the other Craft tools for as long as you’d like, but no further updates to the Windows version will be released and it may stop working with future updates to Photoshop.

Why won’t Craft automatically install for Sketch in macOS?

There are a few reasons why the Craft installation might fail. Check out Why am I seeing "Something went wrong!" when installing Craft? for more information on this issue.

Why won’t Craft automatically install for Photoshop in macOS?

If you encounter an error saying “Auto-install failed” for Photoshop in macOS, you’ll need to manually install the plugin. This is generally necessary if there’s a permissions issue preventing the installer from installing to the plugin folder for Photoshop.

To install manually on macOS:

1. Download the Craft tools for Photoshop.
2. Unzip then file folders should appear.
3. Select and copy the following folders:
   • com.invisionlabs.duplicate
   • com.invisionlabs.getty
   • com.invisionlabs.sync
   • com.invisionlabs.data
   • com.invisionlabs.freehand
4. In Finder, click the Go option in the top mac menu bar and click Go to Folder.
   

   

5. In the window that appears, paste ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CEP/extensions and click OK.
   

   

6. Paste the folders from step 3 into the “extensions” folder.
7. From the downloaded folder, copy com.invisionlabs.sync-generator.
8. Navigate to Applications > Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 (or your current version) > Plug-ins > Generator.
9. Paste the folder copied from step 7.

Once you’ve done that, you should be good to go.

I’ve tried manually installing Craft but it still won’t work! What can I do?

We recommend using the two most recent major versions of Sketch and Photoshop; you should make sure that you’ve fully updated Photoshop or Sketch if you’re running into trouble.

Where do I find the Craft tools in Photoshop?

If first using Craft in Photoshop, you may need to add the tool to your toolbar. To do that, go to Window > Extensions in the menu bar and then select the tool (Duplicate, Data, Sync) you want to use.

Each of the three tools will appear individually. You will not see a plugin named "Craft" listed, but instead you will see the three individual tools.

Why is Sketch crashing after I installed Craft?

Craft shouldn't crash Sketch normally but there are a few reasons why it might happen. Please check out Why is Sketch crashing after I installed Craft? for more on why and how to fix it.

What happens when I quit Craft Manager?

If you quit Craft Manager, your tools won’t show up automatically after you open Sketch. You can restore the Craft panel by going to Plugins > Toggle Craft from your Sketch menu bar.

How do I uninstall Craft?

You can easily uninstall the Craft tools by:

1. Click the Craft Manager icon () in the mac menu bar.
2. Click the gear icon in the upper right corner.
3. Click Preferences.
4. Click Uninstall Craft to uninstall the tools.

If you need to manually uninstall the Craft tools or want to uninstall the Craft Manager app, how you do so depends on which component you’re trying to uninstall:

Craft Manager

To fully uninstall the Craft Manager app after uninstalling the tools:

1. Open your Applications folder, right-click Craft Manager, and click Move to Trash.
   If it can't be moved to the Trash because it's running, proceed to step 2. If you were able to move the Craft Manager application to your Trash, skip to step 7.
2. Open the Activity Monitor app in macOS.
3. In the upper right corner, search for "CraftManager" and click on the app that's listed. CraftManager is the companion app for Craft that helps install and update the Craft tools.
   

   

4. Click the stop sign icon in the upper left corner.
   

   

5. Click Quit to close Craft Manager.
   

   

6. You should then be able to delete the Craft Manager application successfully.
7. Once deleted, empty your trash to ensure the app is permanently deleted.

Sketch

1. Go to ~/Library/Application Support/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3/Plugins.
2. Delete Panels.sketchplugin.
3. Go to ~/Library/Application Support/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3/.
4. Delete the Panels folder.

Photoshop on macOS

1. Go to ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CEP/extensions.
2. Delete the folders that have Craft tool names, such as com.invisionlabs.data.