How to import symbols?

[Sephen]

How do you import symbols used in a different file?

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, Sephen said:

How do you import symbols used in a different file?

With both files open, select a symbol somewhere in the source document, Copy, then go to the target document and Paste.

[Joachim_L]

There are so many things you can import or export. Why not Symbols?

[Move Along People]

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[GarryP]

If you have things that are to be used across different documents then Assets are probably a better bet than Symbols.
However, assets don’t have the ‘clone’ functionality of Symbols.
You could keep them as Assets but convert one or more to Symbols in each document where you need the symbol ‘clone’ functionality.

Note: I don’t think it should be possible to add symbols to assets – making them some kind of ‘global symbol’ – as changes to a symbol in one document could inadvertently change the structure of other documents when they are reopened. That sounds like it could cause a lot of grief.

Edited February 12, 2020 by GarryP
I was wrong, again.

[Move Along People]

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[Dazzler]

31 minutes ago, GarryP said:

If you have things that are to be used across different documents then Assets are probably a better bet than Symbols.
However, assets don’t have the ‘clone’ functionality of Symbols.
You could keep them as Assets but convert one or more to Symbols in each document where you need the symbol ‘clone’ functionality.

Note: I don’t think it should be possible to add symbols to assets – making them some kind of ‘global symbol’ – as changes to a symbol in one document could inadvertently change the structure of other documents when they are reopened. That sounds like it could cause a lot of grief.

I've just tried this out. So, you can have a symbol and make it an asset, and it still behaves like a symbol after you drag it into a document, but it looks like the symbol synchronisation is limited to the document - changing the symbol in a document doesn't have any effect on the one in the assets panel. I actually think that's probably the best behaviour. Like you said Garry, you wouldn't want to make changes in one document that affect things in another.

[GarryP]

Sorry, I was sure that symbols couldn’t be used as assets because of the potential problem I mentioned.
It looks like a new symbol is created when you drag an asset out but changes to that new symbol don’t affect other documents, at least as far as I can tell with limited testing.
And, if you change a dragged-out symbol, when you drag another one out another new symbol is created.
This all looks good to me. I’ve edited my earlier post.

[Sephen]

I understand the idea behind assets and i would be using it if changes to an asset update automatically through out a document.

Maybe adding the feature that you can choose if an asset is global or local. Until then I will keep making separate files as assets

Symbols i.m.o. are missing some basic features like duplicating symbols and changing the link to a symbol to another symbol.