Design properties
Design properties can be used to improve slide responsiveness and maintain control over the design and layout.
Intro
There are various text, element and layer properties in Figma that you can use to design your slides. For positioning elements on slides, feel free to use auto-layout, grouping or just arrange your items freely within a slide frame.
However, to have your slides looking and working great in deckd while keeping control over layouts, it’s important to follow some rules.
1. Check height and width settings for text
Avoid using hug in auto-layouts
When using auto-layout, you can set text height and width to hug, fixed, or fill. These settings function the same way in both Figma and deckd. Avoid using hug by itself, as it allows the text to expand indefinitely in the editor. To keep it responsive while maintaining control, combine hug with max-height or max-width settings.
Height and width are considered fixed when not using auto-layout
When not using auto-layout, text height and width settings are considered fixed in deckd. This applies whether you use default or set values. The text box will not expand or shrink beyond these set values.
Text height shouldn’t be smaller than its default height
Make sure the height of a text layer is no less than its default height. For example, if the text size is 20px with a line height of 150%, the text layer’s height should be at least 30px. For a multi-line text box, multiply the default height by the number of lines to get the correct height.
Height and width settings in Figma
By default, the height and width of your text layers in Figma are set to hug, to automatically accommodate the text. In the design panel on the top right, this setting is indicated by hug for text within an auto-layout. For text not in an auto-layout, the default size is displayed as a greyed-out value.
2. Check your layer hierarchy
Ensure that layers intended to be editable — such as text or images — are not covered by other layers that sit on top of them. This can occur for instance when using groups. If a group layer is placed on top of a text layer that isn’t part of that group, the text cannot be edited.
Layers in Figma
The left modal in Figma provides a view of your used layer hierarchy. Simply drag layers to the bottom or use the keyboard shortcut [ to send layers to the back.
3. Make full use of other design properties
In addition to layer properties, there are various other design properties you can use to refine your slide design in Figma and get them displayed accordingly in deckd. We won’t cover them in detail here, however examples include text properties such as alignment, color gradients, letter spacing or letter case settings.
Get a full overview of Figma’s design properties here: Layer properties and text properties.
4. Unsupported properties
Due to the wide range of design properties available in Figma, we currently don’t support them all.
If you encounter display issues, please use the in-app bug report form or reach out via our Slack community.
Below is a live list of unsupported properties that we are aware of:
| Property | Additonal info |
|---|---|
| Inner and outer stroke | We display them but they may not be shown 100% correct. Please simply use center stroke instead to avoid any issues. |
| Strokes of unions | We display them but they may not be shown 100% correct. Try to avoid unions and use group instead or not at all and style each children individually. |
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