Adobe XD Keyboard Shortcuts
Adobe XD sits in an interesting position within Adobe's lineup — it shares enough DNA with Photoshop and Illustrator that several tool-switching shortcuts feel immediately familiar to anyone who's used those, but its prototyping mode (linking artboards together with interactive transitions) is entirely its own invention with no precedent elsewhere in Adobe's suite. The shortcuts below split across drawing/design mode and the prototype-wiring workflow, since XD treats these as genuinely distinct tabs within the same document rather than separate apps. Windows uses Ctrl, Mac uses Cmd, largely mirroring each other apart from a handful of OS-reserved exceptions. Repeat Grid, a distinctive XD feature for quickly duplicating a group of elements in a grid pattern (like a list of product cards) while keeping bound data or images independently editable per instance, has no direct equivalent shortcut in Illustrator or Photoshop since it's purpose-built for the repetitive layout patterns common in UI design specifically. Because Adobe has signaled reduced ongoing investment in XD relative to Figma's growing dominance in the same UI/UX space, some teams already familiar with XD's shortcuts are navigating a migration to Figma, where several — though not all — of the same conceptual shortcuts carry over with different key bindings.
Design Tools
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rectangle tool | R | R | Switches to the Rectangle tool; holding Shift while dragging constrains to a perfect square, matching the convention shared across most Adobe tools. |
| Ellipse tool | E | E | Switches to the Ellipse tool for drawing circles and ovals, with Shift constraining to a perfect circle while dragging. |
| Pen tool | P | P | Activates the Pen tool, letting you click and drag to place anchor points and build curved or straight vector segments, matching the click-drag interaction pattern from Illustrator's own pen tool. |
| Text tool | T | T | Activates the Text tool; clicking places auto-width text while dragging creates a fixed-width text area with word wrap. |
| Apply Repeat Grid | Ctrl+R (with object selected) | Cmd+R | Converts the selected object into a repeating grid that duplicates it in a configurable row/column pattern, XD's distinctive feature for quickly populating list or card layouts with placeholder content. |
| Create a Repeat Grid | Ctrl+R (with elements selected) | Cmd+R | Converts a selected group of elements into a Repeat Grid that duplicates the group in a grid pattern while keeping bound content independently editable per instance, a distinctive XD feature purpose-built for repetitive UI layouts like card lists. |
Artboards Layout
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Insert new artboard | A | A | Activates the Artboard tool, ready either to drag out a custom-sized artboard freehand or choose a device preset from the property inspector before it's placed. |
| Align selection left | Ctrl+Alt+L | Cmd+Option+L | Aligns all selected objects to the leftmost edge among them, useful for cleaning up a row of unevenly placed elements. |
| Group selection | Ctrl+G | Cmd+G | Bundles the selected layers into one group that moves, resizes, and styles as a unit, though each layer inside it stays individually editable if you dig back in. |
| Add new artboard | A | A | Switches to the Artboard tool for adding a new artboard to the canvas, XD's term for the individual screen/page containers that make up a design file. |
Prototyping
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Switch to Prototype tab | Ctrl+Tab (cycles Design/Prototype) | Cmd+Tab varies — use top tab click | Switches the workspace from Design mode into Prototype mode, where dragging from one artboard's edge to another defines an interactive transition between them. |
| Preview prototype | Ctrl+Enter | Cmd+Return | Launches an interactive preview of the current prototype flow, letting you click through the designed transitions exactly as a user would experience them, without leaving the app. |
| Play prototype from selected artboard | No default single-key binding — right-click artboard | No default binding | Starting a preview from a specific artboard rather than the designated home screen requires right-clicking that artboard and selecting Play From This Artboard, since XD doesn't expose this as a direct keyboard shortcut. |
| Preview prototype | Ctrl+Enter | Cmd+Return | Launches an interactive preview of the wired-together artboard transitions, letting you click through the prototype exactly as a user would experience it before sharing a link with stakeholders. |
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does Repeat Grid behave differently from simple duplication?
Unlike a plain copy-paste duplicate, Repeat Grid keeps all instances linked as a single repeating structure — editing the content of one cell (like swapping an image or changing text) can be configured to propagate or vary across the grid, and resizing the grid adds or removes repeated instances automatically rather than requiring manual duplication each time.
What happens to interactive transitions if I delete an artboard during design?
Any prototype connections wired to or from a deleted artboard are also removed, since a transition requires both a source and destination artboard to exist. XD doesn't preserve orphaned connections, so it's worth checking the Prototype tab after deleting or restructuring artboards to confirm nothing important broke.
Is my existing XD subscription still worth renewing, or should I switch tools now?
That depends mainly on whether your team already has a working XD-based workflow and prototyping library built up — Adobe hasn't discontinued the app, so existing licenses keep functioning, but new feature development has clearly slowed relative to Figma's pace of releases. Teams starting a brand-new design system from scratch today generally have less reason to pick XD over a more actively evolving alternative, while teams with years of XD assets already in place may reasonably keep using it until a concrete reason to migrate appears.
Does Repeat Grid work with nested groups or only single objects?
Repeat Grid can wrap a nested group (like a card containing an image, a title, and a price, already grouped together) just as easily as a single flat object — the entire group becomes one repeating cell, and each bound text or image layer inside it can still vary independently per instance. This is what makes Repeat Grid genuinely useful for realistic UI mockups like product listings or contact cards, rather than only working for simple, ungrouped shapes.
Is Adobe XD still being actively developed given Figma's popularity?
Investment has clearly tilted toward Figma across the design-tool market broadly, and Adobe itself has slowed the pace of new XD features accordingly. The app hasn't been discontinued and existing files still open and work normally, but teams evaluating a fresh start today are largely choosing Figma instead, and some longtime XD shops have begun migrating their prototyping libraries over, accepting that a handful of XD-specific shortcuts and conventions won't carry across one-to-one.
Can I test a prototype's interactions before sharing it with stakeholders?
Yes, the Preview shortcut launches an interactive click-through of the wired-together artboard transitions directly within XD, letting you verify the flow behaves as intended before generating and sharing an actual prototype link with reviewers.
Can Adobe XD files be opened by teams that use Figma instead?
There's no native direct XD-to-Figma file conversion built into either tool, though some third-party plugins and conversion services exist to help migrate designs, and teams switching generally need to account for some manual rebuilding of prototyping-specific interactions that don't map one-to-one between the two tools.
Is there a shortcut for repeating a grid of duplicated objects with consistent spacing in XD?
Yes — Repeat Grid (Ctrl+Alt+R / Cmd+Option+R) turns a selected object into a grid that duplicates it in rows and columns with consistent spacing, and dragging any edge of the grid adds or removes duplicates automatically, much faster than manually copying and aligning each individual item by hand.