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harsha20599
harsha20599
New Participant
February 17, 2021

Replace a layer with component

  • February 17, 2021
  • 21 replies
  • 22561 views

We recently migrated into Figma and imported all our sketch files. I created a solid DS in Figma. Now the problem is, while working on old files, It’s hard to remove a layer and place the component at the same place.

It’s been so much annoying and it’s a life saving feature to have something like replace layer with component.

Do you also faced same problem ? Please help me out if you have a workaround or plugin that eases this.

    21 replies

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    Gleb
    Gleb
    Power Member
    October 7, 2021

    Maddy, this is the best way to do it as of now if you don’t care about keeping overrides.

      moenen
      moenen
      November 30, 2021

      Unfortunately Master doesn’t work when you try to replace an object with a component from an external library.

        Gleb
        Gleb
        Power Member
        November 30, 2021

        It should. Select a component published to the library, run Master → Pick Target Component. Then select objects you want to replace and run Master → Link Objects to Target Component.

        If something isn’t working, send me an example here or to gleb@dominate.design so I can investigate what could be wrong. A video recording of your actions and links to files would be perfect.

        Alex_Fedorov
        Alex_Fedorov
        January 6, 2022

        I love Figma but goddam if they couldn’t just include a Replace… or Replace With… in the right-click menu like Sketch.

          Sarah19
          Sarah19
          January 28, 2022

          Our team is planning a transition to Figma, and I’m coming across this issue over and over as I rebuild our pattern library. Replace with... is one of the primary features I use for curating and building components in Sketch, so this is a huge friction point for me.

          Figma—please tell me this feature is in the works. 🙏

            Brad_Ruesch
            Brad_Ruesch
            February 5, 2022

            @Sarah19 Check out Figma’s “Paste to Replace” functionality. I think this will help. Here’s a link to the Copy and Paste Playground Figma Community file:

            Figma

            Play with the examples to get the hang of it.

              Sarah19
              Sarah19
              February 8, 2022

              Thanks! I did discover this tool and it is helping.

              Fang_Gao
              Fang_Gao
              February 15, 2022

              The paste to replace doesn’t work if it’s a group / frame to be replaced right. It only works with image I guess. Is there a way that I can replace a group in a component? Thanks!

              Fabian
              Fabian
              New Member
              February 16, 2022

              I just released a plugin, where you can select a frame and replace it with a component and keep the original text from the frame. Only requirement: The original frame and the component must have the same amount of text-frames:

              Figma

              This Plugin also helps of you want to reattach a detached instance of a component.

                Miki_UX
                Miki_UX
                New Member
                February 28, 2023

                Hey Harsha, same problem: needed to replace a hundred components. Lucky thing is that they all have the same name. What I did is:

                1. Searched for that layer name, results showed
                2. I copied the component that will replace them (make sure it has a different name than the ones to be replaced)
                3. And then I just pressed cmd + shift + R until all the components in the results were replaced.

                Manual, but worked for me in a matter of seconds. Hope this helps, thanks.

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