Multi-Edit: Type Once, Update Everywhere

Why it exists

Designers routinely face the drudgery of changing the same word across dozens of screens. Before multi-edit, you either hunted layers one by one or used a plugin that could misfire on hidden text. The feature exists to turn a repetitive copy edit into a single gesture, saving time without forcing you to set up components or variables first.

The mental model

Think of multi-edit as a broadcast microphone. You speak once, and every selected speaker plays your voice, but each speaker keeps its own volume and EQ. In Figma, that means one string enters many text layers while each layer retains its own font, size, color, and paragraph spacing.

How it works

Select two or more text layers on the canvas, then press Enter or double-click to enter text editing mode. A cursor appears in every selected layer. As you type, delete, or paste plain text, each layer updates in real time. The operation respects the existing style of each layer, so a bold header and a light caption can receive the same new label without becoming identical. If layers have different character counts, the text box resizes independently based on its own constraints and auto-layout rules.

When to use it

Reach for multi-edit when you need a fast, one-time string sweep. Common scenarios include retitling every navigation header in a prototype, updating placeholder dates across a dashboard, or renaming a button label that appears on multiple frames before you have turned those buttons into a component with properties. It is also useful for quick experiments, such as testing how a longer CTA reads inside buttons of varying widths.

When not to use it

Do not use multi-edit when the text is part of a design system that should stay synchronized through components or variables. If you update an instance with multi-edit, you are creating a local override, not a systemic change. Also avoid it when the layers are far apart on different pages or hidden inside collapsed frames, because it is easy to miss one and ship inconsistent copy. Finally, skip it if you need to preserve unique substrings within each layer; multi-edit replaces the entire content of every selected text box.

One canonical example

Imagine you are polishing a checkout flow and every screen has a primary button labeled Buy. The button exists inside separate frames for cart, shipping, and payment, and you have not yet made it a component. You select all three Buy text layers, type Add to Cart, and all three buttons update instantly. The cart button stays 16 px bold, the shipping button stays 14 px medium, and the payment button stays 18 px semibold because multi-edit only touches the string, not the style. Two days later, the team decides on Purchase instead. Because multi-edit left no persistent link, you must repeat the selection or switch to component properties to avoid the same manual work again.