Use collections – Abstract

Collections help you present your work during design reviews and presentations.

This feature is only available on our Pro and Enterprise plans. Upgrade your plan to use collections.

Understand collections permissions

Any contributor can create a collection either on a branch or on the main branch. Collections can be deleted by the collection creator or by an admin contributor.

Collections permissions on a branch:

Any contributor user can create a collection on their own branch or on another user's branch.
For collections created on a branch, only the collection creator can edit the collection.
Collections on a branch auto-update whenever the branch owner makes a commit, unless the collection creator has turned off auto update.
When a branch is merged to the main branch, any collections on that branch are archived with the branch. The collection owner can add or remove artboards in the collection, but the artboards won't update anymore.

Collections permissions on the main branch:

Any contributor user can create a collection on the main branch.
Collections created on the main branch can be edited by the creator of the collection or by an admin contributor.
The artboards that are in a collection created on the main branch auto-update whenever someone merges a branch to the main branch that affects those items, unless auto-update is turned off.

Create a collection

You can create a collection from the main branch or from a branch you own. Watch our video "Reviewing: Sharing your work" to learn about creating and updating collections to share your work.

Collections are limited to a total of 100 artboards and layers.

Open the Abstract app (desktop or web).
Select the project where you’d like to create a collection.
Choose where you’d like to create a collection: on the main branch or on a branch you own.
Click New Collection.
Select which artboards you’d like to include in your collection.
Click Add items.
Fill in a name and description for the collection.
Close the window and your collection is created.

Change an existing collection

To add or remove artboards:

Open the Abstract app (desktop or web).
Select the project where the collection is located.
In the left side pane, select the Collections tab.
Select a collection you’ve created that you’d like to change.

To remove an artboard, hover over it and click the icon in the top left.
To add artboard(s), click Add item in the top right corner or click the empty artboard with a icon.

To rearrange artboards, drag and drop them.

Update a collection

By default, collections are auto-updated as your team commits and merges changes to the artboards in the collection.

Turn off auto-update

You can turn off auto-update for each artboard if you’d like to keep a previous artboard design as part of your collection. Toggling auto-update off for an artboard stops updating the preview in the collection at the point you turned it off.

If you make any commits after this point, the Go to latest button appears when you click on a thumbnail in your collection to preview the artboard, which indicates that you’re looking at a previous commit. Click Go to latest to navigate to the current commit of that artboard.

To turn off auto-update for an artboard:

Open the Abstract app (desktop or web).
Select the project where the collection is located.
In the left side pane, select the Collections tab.
Select your collection from the list.
Hover over the artboard you’d like to turn off auto-update for.
Toggle the auto-update switch to the left. The switch turns grey when it's off.

Turn on auto-update

You can turn on auto-update for each artboard so that the preview of that artboard is always updated in your collection to match what the artboard looks like whenever you make a commit.

To turn on auto-update for an artboard:

Open the Abstract app (desktop or web).
Select the project where the collection is located.
In the left side pane, select the Collections tab.
Select your collection from the list.
Hover over the artboard you’d like to turn auto-update on for.
Toggle the auto-update switch to the right. The switch turns green when it's on.

What happens to my collection when I merge my branch to the main branch?

The collections remain available under the Collections tab for each project.

When a collection is created in a branch that is then merged to the main branch, the collection is archived with the branch. You are able to add to the collection but the artboards in the collection won't update anymore.

Present a collection

To present a collection:

Open the Abstract app (desktop or web).
Select the project where the collection is located.
In the left side pane, select the Collections tab.
Select the collection from the list.
Select Present in the upper right corner.

Alternatively, to start your presentation from a specific artboard, hovering over the artboard and click the icon.

Presentation mode launches a fullscreen preview of your work. Press Esc on your keyboard or click the icon in the upper left corner to exit presentation mode.

Navigate between artboards while presenting

To navigate through the artboards in the collection you can use the arrows on the bottom left of the screen or you can use the control arrows on your keyboard.

Leave comments on artboards while presenting

As your stakeholders give you feedback during your presentation, you can record their comments directly from presentation mode. Click the icon in the bottom right to access the comment panel. You can also annotate specific parts of the design.

Switch between Day and Night mode while presenting

If a dark background would better showcase your designs, click the Night mode icon at the top right to turn it on.

To switch back to day mode, click the icon.

Use Inspect in presentations

Click the Inspect options in the bottom right corner to be taken to the inspect details. Inspect can be especially helpful if you’re presenting to engineers who may be implementing the design.

Share a collection

Follow these instructions for sharing a collection.

Search and filter collections

To search or filter collections:

Open the Abstract app (desktop or web).
Select the project containing collections you’d like to search.
In the left side pane, select the Collections tab.
Up top, you can filter by collection status (All Branches, Main, Active, Archived). You can also search by author and title. Combine these search tools to find the collection you’re looking for.

Delete a collection

Collections can be deleted by the collection creator or by an admin contributor.

To delete a collection:

Open the Abstract app (desktop or web).
Select the project where the collection is located.
Select the collection you want to delete and right click.
Click Delete and follow the prompts.

Missing previews in a collection

Sometimes, you may see an empty artboard preview with either of the following error texts:

Artboard removed
Layer removed

When you add an artboard or layer to a collection, but then you remove that artboard or layer from the file in a following commit, the message Artboard Removed or Layer Removed appears. If you click into the preview for this removed artboard or layer, you can see the artboard or layer at the last commit before the artboard or layer was removed.

This often occurs when artboards are cut and pasted, or when they’re copied and pasted and the original artboard is deleted. To avoid this, we suggest you rearrange your artboards inside your Sketch files by clicking and dragging them.

To resolve the Artboard Removed or Layer Removed message, check the commit history to locate when the artboard or layer was removed. The easiest way to find this is to click the artboard in your collection and find the last commit where you're able to see a visual preview of the artboard. From that commit, you can then restore back to a commit or to a specific file prior to where the layer was removed.

Alternatively, you can also remove or replace the item in the collection.