Prepare your Figma file
What stays editable
What survives as a real element, what becomes a picture, and what is dropped.
Three outcomes
Text, layout, and repeated items stay editable. Artwork becomes a picture.
A group flips to artwork when it looks like artwork.
- Editable
- Frames, Auto Layout, text, buttons, cards, and forms
- A picture
- Image fills, vectors, shape-only groups, and icon font text
- Dropped
- Hidden layers, 0% opacity, and layers mostly outside the frame
Opacity has to be exactly zero to be dropped. A layer at 1% is kept, so faint layers still build.
Groups that flip to artwork
A group is flattened into one picture when it matches any of these.
- Scattered
- 8 or more children, small or rotated
- Overlapping
- 6 or more children overlapping heavily
- Thin lines
- 5 or more long thin children
- Faded
- 6 or more children under 50% opacity
- Default names
- 8 or more named like Rectangle 3
- Deep nesting
- Past 15 levels, and always past 25
The one thing worth remembering
None of these rules fire if the group contains a real text layer.
See the exact thresholds
- Scattered
- 8 or more children, and either 70% at 48px or smaller with 40% rotated, or 90% small, or 60% rotated
- Overlapping
- 6 or more children where 80% overlap a sibling by 70% of the smaller area
- Thin lines
- 5 or more children where 80% have a ratio of 12 or more and are 4px or thinner
- Faded
- 6 or more children where 85% sit below 50% opacity
- Default names
- 8 or more children where 90% match a default Figma name
- Deep nesting
- Level 20 with 5 or more descendants and 80% shapes, or level 15 with 15 or more descendants
Keep it editable
- 1Name the layers inside the group
- 2Put a real text layer in it
- 3Keep nesting shallow
Icons are always pictures
Vector icons are exported as images by design, and they will look correct. Icon font glyphs become images too, so use real vectors instead where you can.