Google Sheet Content Sync Sketch Plugin

Home / Google Sheet Content Sync Sketch Plugin

December 5, 2019

Edit and collaborate on your content in Google Sheets, then sync in back to your sketch files.

Usage

TL;DR

Create a Google Sheet — enter titles across the top, and values directly below
Publish it with File > Publish to the web... > Publish
Name text layers appropriately — e.g. text layer #title
Run the plugin — control + i

1. Create your Spreadsheet

Create a new Google Spreadsheet (unfortunately Google Docs won’t work with this.)

Enter your content going horizontally, with the titles on the first line, and the values directly below. Note: It is very important that you do it this way

2. Publish the sheet

Next you need to publish the document, so that Sketch can read it’s contents via the shareable link.

Do this by going File > Publish to the web... > Publish

3. Name your layers

Now that the spreadsheet is accessible — how do you tie specific values to your layers?

It all comes down to how you name your layers

In the name of a layer, add a ‘#’ followed by the title in the spreadsheet.

For example: to tie the value of ‘title’ to a Text Layer, give it a name like #title

Spreadsheet Data	Sketch Layer list

It is not case-sensitive, and will ignore spaces — so text #anothertitle will still get the value for Another Title, you can also have other naming before the ‘#’. So layer name #title and #title would both work equally.

🌄 Using images

It is also possible to link images to shape layers. Simply tie in the image name into the name of the Shape layer, ‘e.g.’ Profile pic #avatar; then in your Google Sheet, add an image URL as the value.

Different Sheets

If you would like to tie the data to a specific sheet within the Google Spreadsheet, add the sheet name to your Sketch page, otherwise it will default to the first page. (Note: Only one Google sheet, per a Sketch page)

Spreadsheet Sheets	Sketch Page list

Multiple values for the same title

You can give multiple values to the same title, by default it will grab the first one.

To get a specific value — add the ‘nth’ one you want after a ‘.’

e.g. to get the 2nd title value a layer may be called layer name #title.2.

Spreadsheet Multiple values	Sketch Multiple values

It’s also possible to randomise which value is used. Instead of using a number such as layer name #title.2 use an ‘x’ or ‘n’ — layer name #title.n or layer name #title.x.

4. Run the plugin

⌃ control + i to import the values from a spreadsheet. A popup alert will appear, allowing you to enter the URL of your Google Sheet. Important: Use the URL of your Google Sheet in the browser address bar, DO NOT use the URL generated after clicking ‘Publish to the web’.

Then click Import. That’s it! 🎉 The content should magically populate.

Anytime you want to re-sync the values, run the plugin again!

Working with Symbols

⚠️ Note: Nested symbols are not yet supported

Symbols are great for creating an element that is used multiple times, but the content slightly differs. Which makes is a great candidate for this plugin.

When using Symbols, make sure the layer names within the Symbol have a ‘#’ followed by Google Sheets column title — same as explained above. So that the override label matches the column title.

Spreadsheet Columns	Sketch Symbol Layer list

Then to make each Symbol instance refer to a different row in the spreadsheet, make sure the layer name for each Symbol instance has a ‘.’ followed by the ‘n’th row you want it to refer to. Like so…

Why make this plugin?

This is great for collaborating on content heavy documents, or when you may have a copywriter you work with.

There has been numerous times that I have been working on a large document with others, where we would collaborate in a Google doc. Then I would continually copy that content back into my Sketch design. This can be very frustrating after multiple iterations — when you think you’re done with the content, so you copy it all into Sketch; then more updates are made, and you have to copy them all again. 😡

This plugin really saves the day in that regard — and has saved me a ton of time. 😍

Another use case, is having different versions of text across different sheets, to easily change between them.