Use Symbols to turn any element and its child element into a reusable component.
Use Symbols to manage recurring layouts and content more efficiently across your site.
Symbols allow you to turn elements and their child elements into a reusable layout — update and edit Symbols in a single place to avoid revising each recurring layout individually.
Symbols can be used in 2 main ways:
You can create a Symbol from any element or group of elements in your project, except for the body element.
To create a Symbol:
Once you've created a Symbol, you’ll be placed in the main mode of the Symbol. All changes in the main mode will update across all instances of that symbol. You can enter main mode on any instance by double clicking (see Editing the main Symbol).
You can also create a new Symbol by pressing the shortcut keys on your keyboard: Command + Shift + A (on Mac) or Control + Shift + A (on Windows). This will create a Symbol from whatever element you have selected.
Need to know: If an element is nested inside of a Symbol, you won't be able to save that element as a Symbol as well. Nested Symbols will be coming in the future.
NOTE: If you’re creating a Symbol that will have the exact same content in each instance (like nav bars, footers, and some forms) you don’t need to create override fields for that Symbol.
Override fields let you define specific elements within a Symbol that can be overridden with unique content on a Symbol instance. This is great for recurring layout patterns whose structure should be uniform, but that have unique content in each instance. (Read more about Symbol overrides in our announcement blog post.)
Select the element you want to make overridable, then create an override field in the element’s settings.
To create an override field:
Alternate approach: create a field first then connect it to an element in the Symbol.
You can also create an override field while editing the main Symbol directly from the settings panel and connect those fields to elements within a Symbol.
You can create overrides for the following types of elements:
Future support for style overrides is under development.
Once you’ve created a Symbol, you can reuse it anywhere in your project.
When you select an instance of a Symbol, you’ll see it highlighted and outlined in green. Click the Style panel to see how many times that Symbol appears your project.
You can also add Symbols onto the canvas using Quick find with Command + E (on Mac) or Control + E (on Windows). Learn how to use quick find.
You can nest Symbols within other Symbols to build and maintain complex layouts more easily and efficiently. Nesting Symbols inside one another means you can make a button a Symbol and have the navigation, hero section, and feature cards also be Symbols.
This allows you to independently update each Symbol in one place and see those changes impact every other instance.
To nest Symbols:
You can also create a Symbol from a parent element that already contains a Symbol.
When you nest a Symbol with override fields within another Symbol, you’ll see a prompt to link that nested Symbol’s fields to the parent Symbol. This allows you to set overrides for the field within the nested Symbol from the parent Symbol instances.
To link a nested Symbol to a parent Symbol:
Apply content overrides to individual Symbol instances in the settings panel.
To apply content overrides for elements in a given Symbol instance:
To revert an override to the default content of that Symbol, click the label to reset all your overrides at once.
To edit a Symbol, double-click on an instance or select it and press enter. Once you enter edit mode, you are making changes to the main Symbol.
Double-click to edit the main Symbol. In the main Symbol view, you’ll see the default values for your override fields.
Edits to the main Symbol will affect every Symbol instance (unless that Symbol instance has a content override applied to a specific element).
You can change the structure and element order of all Symbol instances at once from the main Symbol.
Edits to the main Symbol affect each instance, unless specifically overridden in a Symbol instance.
If you delete an element from the main Symbol, each corresponding element in other instances will also be deleted (even if they’ve been overridden with unique content). You can add new elements to the main Symbol and reconnect them to existing override fields, and each instance will remember and apply the overrides previously set.
Once you’re done editing a Symbol:
Once you're out of the main Symbol, you’ll be editing that specific Symbol instance.
If you’ve invited Collaborators to update your site’s content in the Editor, any changes they make to Symbol elements that are consistent across all instances will apply to all other instances. If they edit an element within a Symbol that is tied to an override field, edits to that Symbol instance’s element will only apply to that Symbol instance.
To rename a Symbol:
To rename a Symbol using Quickfind:
To delete a Symbol completely:
To unlink a Symbol and make changes to it independently:
Once unlinked, editing a linked instance of that Symbol will not change the unlinked instance.
Good to know: If the Editing Main Symbol overlaps the content you're trying to edit, double-clicking the bar will move it to the top of the Designer.
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