Download MP4

Now you've mastered masters (…Sorry, couldn’t help ourselves).

When placed on a wireframe, the widgets in a custom widget master lose their relationship to the original master and can be edited like other widgets. This is useful for creating a library of widgets with predefined properties, annotations and/or interactions (e.g., a blue button with white text).

Masters are stored within the file. To create libraries of widgets that are stored separately (like Visio stencils) and can be easily shared or used

in other files, you can create custom widget libraries.

To add a master to a wireframe, drag and drop the master from the Masters pane onto the wireframe.

You might notice a mask on the master: pink for Normal masters and gray for Place in Background. You can remove the mask by going to Wireframe in the main menu and un-checking the ”Mask Masters” option.

Once you’ve added a master to the wireframe pane, you can open the master for editing by double-clicking on the master in the Masters pane or on the instance of the master in the wireframe.

Masters can be set to three different behaviors: normal, place in background or custom widget (each one detailed below). To change the behavior of a master, right-click on the master in the Masters pane and choose from the Behavior submenu.

You can change the behavior of a master at any time, but this only affects new instances of the master you add to pages from that point on. For example, if you changed the behavior of a master from Custom Widget to Normal, it does not change the behavior of the instances already added to the wireframe.

To change the behavior of a master already on a wireframe, right-click on the master in the wireframe, and choose from the Master submenu. The submenu has options to “Place in Background”, “Remove from Background” or “Flatten” (which pulls the widgets out of the master so they can be edited).

The Masters Pane (located in the bottom left hand corner) is where you can add and organize all the masters in your file.

To create a master, click on the “Add Master” button in the toolbar of the Masters pane.

To rename a master, do a slow double-click on the master,.

To delete a master, select it and click the “Delete Master” button in the master toolbar.

Drag and drop pages in the Masters Pane or use the arrow buttons in the toolbar to reorder masters. You can organize masters into folders by clicking the folder icon in the toolbar of the Masters pane to add a folder, and dragging and dropping masters into the folder.

Create masters to build reusable assets and quickly apply global changes to your wireframes. In this article, learn how to create, organize, edit and use masters.

Masters are collections of widgets that you can reuse throughout your file. Common elements that are created as masters include headers, footers, navigation and page templates.

The great thing about masters is that you can use a master on as many pages as you’d like and maintain it in one place. Any edits you make to the master will be applied everywhere the master is used. You can add masters to pages as well as other masters and you can use as many masters on a page as you need.

For example, if you create a navigation menu master with buttons and later decide that you want to change the “Benefits” button to “Why Choose”, you can make that edit in one place and it will update all the pages that contain the navigation. This can be a real time saver so try to use masters whenever the same widgets repeat across pages.

Double-click a master to open it for design in the wireframe pane.

Design the master by dragging and dropping widgets, the same way you design pages.

You can also use nest masters within masters by dragging an existing master from the Masters pane onto the wireframe.

Tip: If you’re working on a wireframe page and decide you want to move a set of widgets into a master, you can select those widgets, right-click and choose Convert -> Convert to Master in the context menu. This will automatically create a master containing those widgets.

When placed on a wireframe, you can move and position the master as needed.

Normal masters have a pink mask when added to a page which can be turned off using Wireframe->Mask Masters in the main menu.

When placed on a wireframe, the master snaps into the background of the page and into the position it was originally created. This is helpful for page templates and layouts.

Place in Background masters have a gray mask when added to a page.