Figma plugins for editors
Tools that can make working with text more enjoyable
Hi! I’m Luda, a UX writer. Every day, along with designers, I create and edit content in Figma.
Sometimes, typos creep into the text, and I want to automatically check them for compliance with the style guide. In moments of mental blocks, I want to search for inspiration in some database of ready-made interface texts or ask for help from AI content creation tools.
Most of these requests can be solved with plugins. Together with my colleagues, we tested several plugins for Figma, and now I want to share with you the tools that seemed most useful to us. I’ll also tell you about the ones we didn’t like very much.
Disclaimer: we write content in English, so all plugins are relevant for working with English text.
I also published the same article in Russian.
For grammar and spell-checking
Although Figma learned to check spelling in one of its recent updates, many plugins have more features. Besides, they allow you to check all the text on the screen or multiple screens at once without selecting the text layer.
It’s a regular spell-checker that checks for spelling and basic grammar. It’s also being actively improved. Recently, in response to user requests, the developers released the feature to add words to the ‘dictionary’ so that the plugin doesn’t consider them incorrect and doesn’t suggest correcting them.
Pros:
- Has a feature of adding words to the dictionary.
- Supports 10+ languages.
- Checks quickly — a couple of seconds per 1 screen.
- Has no restrictions on the number of screens to check — you can run the check on the entire page with a lot of frames.
- Displays a list of all texts of the screen — this can be useful for developers.
- Can be used on FigJam files.
Cons:
- It misses some grammar errors.
- It doesn’t check data formats, such as dates, currencies, etc.
Cost: Paid. You can try a 5-day trial, but then you’ll have to pay from $10 per user per month.
2. Spelll
A good free checker for small amounts of text.
What Spelll can do:
- save words to the dictionary so the plugin doesn’t flag them as errors;
- check the entire page at once, without the need to select each layer separately;
- check basic grammar, suggest changes to capitalization and punctuation, and improve currency spelling;
- operate in FigJam.
It supports 43 languages and promises not to correct lorem ipsum, but unfortunately, I haven’t tested that myself.
But:
- you can’t add words and phrases to the stop-list, only to the dictionary of allowed words.
- it can take a while to process large files.
Cost: Free! Well, technically free. After the 7-day trial, you can use it for free to check small files with up to 100 text layers. If you want more, the subscription starts at $10 per month.
That’s my favorite one among spell checker plugins, and we use it in the team. Here, I will start with subscription plans:
- Basic — free
- Individual — $11/month
- Team — $18/month per person
Any plan can be tested for free for one month.
With any plan, you can:
- check grammar, spelling, and punctuation
- check one text input, one frame, or multiple Figma frames at once.
Plans above Basic include:
- An evaluation of readability using the scale of your choice
- style and inclusivity suggestions
- word count and estimated reading time
- A glossary of terms with the ability to manage preferred and prohibited variants
- Adding snippets of frequently used text segments
- AI tools for rewriting and generating text from scratch
- A separate personal web account where you can manage all rules and settings, and check other texts in a text editor outside Figma
- A Chrome extension that checks texts you write on other sites using the rules you’ve set up.
The plugin checks for AmE, there are other variants of English. But it doesn’t support other languages.
For managing copy
As the name of the plugin suggests, it allows you to search for text and make auto-replacements for either one instance or all at once. I couldn’t find information about how many languages it supports, but it definitely works well with Russian and English. You can search for text:
- Across the entire page or in selected frames
- In different parts of the text: beginning, end, or throughout the text
- With or without case sensitivity.
Figma now has this plugin’s functionality natively built-in, and the search works with the familiar Cmd+F/Ctrl+F combination. But I still want to mention the plugin: it saved plenty of time as an external solution before Figma integrated this functionality.
Cost: It’s free of charge!
2. Frontitude
The plugin aims to solve several problems related to managing text and become a comprehensive solution for “copywriting” management. Many features help establish a connection with developers and assist with the transfer and updating of texts. The plugin also works with text components and a library of typical texts. Similar to Writer, Frontitude has a separate web version with advanced settings and plugins with more specific but limited functionality.
I haven’t extensively tested the plugin. It seems that some of UX writing-related processes in the team need to be restructured for it since it will be most useful if not only writers but also designers and developers use it. It is most likely suitable for initially setting up a writer’s work in the team, especially if there is a need to synchronize texts and code.
Cost: Free for 1–2 people, $49+ per month for teams.
For replacing lorem ipsum and finding inspiration
The plugin has a large pool of different error texts: payment, system, server, login errors, etc. All errors are available in 3 voice variations: plain, casual, and playful. You can choose an error and insert it directly into the desired layer.
I use the plugin when I want to look at voice examples and get inspired when writing my own error texts.
Cost: free. You don’t even need to register, but if you do, you can use the “save text to favorites and use it again” feature.
2. Headlime
This paid plugin can be useful for marketing texts, such as product descriptions and value propositions, as well as presentations and other similar materials.
It works like this: you specify the type of text you need and describe your target audience and product. Then, you wait for the AI to do its magic, and voila — your text is ready! You can then insert it into your mockup and claim it as your own creation.
While the resulting text may not always be a masterpiece and may require some editing, it’s worth trying the trial at times of the writer’s block. After all, if you take the draft generated by the machine and improve it, you might end up with a really great piece of copy.
The cost of this tool is quite high, with a monthly fee of $59 for an individual plan after the trial period. There is also a business plan available, the cost of which depends on the number of users.
For tracking progress
A fairly small and simple plugin that can help with answering questions like “Is this ready?” or “Has this wording been approved?” and other text status inquiries. It adds an emoji status indicator to the layer name. Despite its simplicity, it’s important to work with it according to established processes so everyone knows where to look. Otherwise, it won’t be very useful.
Oh, and it’s not suitable for a large number of frames. It’s more for small tasks, like marking up a couple of screens, otherwise your finger will get tired of clicking.
Cost: free! No registration, confirmation, or SMS required :)
Another useful tool
It’s hard to put this plugin in any category, but it’s unusual and interesting. It measures the amount of text on the screen: whether it’s too little, too much, or just right. It could be useful for landing pages, important product description pages, and other screens that many of your users see.
It calculates the ratio of text (text blocks) to empty space on the screen. All text blocks are covered with red rectangles, and the area of these rectangles is divided by the area of the empty screen.
The percentage considered large or small is determined based on research.
Using the plugin is not very easy, the team even wrote a guide on how to work correctly with the color highlighting blocks. But it was nice to try something new.
Cost: free!
…And this didn’t work out
A plugin of the “replace lorem ipsum” type. You can search for texts by the type of UI element or by keywords, but the database is very small. Moreover, the examples are mostly either simple and obvious, or very emotional with various “oh”, “uh”, “oops!” that writers try so hard to get rid of now.
2. Text hunter
Essentially, this is also a plugin with a database of texts, only here the texts are taken from websites of real companies. Each text is labeled with its “author”.
But the plugin has text examples that are more about marketing than about user interface and user experience. It’s hard to imagine why such a tool might be needed. Even for a designer, it seems easier to write something roughly suitable in meaning than to search the database for texts from random companies.
3. Hemingway
Like the eponymous web service, this plugin checks texts for readability and assigns them a readability level. The check is based on the rules of the Hemingway editor: it notices the passive voice, adverbs, complex constructions, and hard-to-read sentences. The plugin is easy to use, and also contains a word and character counter, which is useful.
But there are also drawbacks that prevented me from using it:
- The reading level is shown descriptively, not in grades: very easy, easy, difficult. It’s not very intuitive, especially if you have clear guidelines for levels that you need to follow.
- It only works with one text at a time. You need to select a text block in Figma for the plugin to analyze the text in it. It was not possible to check several texts at once.
- Judging by the last updates 2 years ago, the plugin is not supported now
4. UI copy
This is an unremarkable plugin with a small selection of common texts for errors, headings, etc. To use it, you must connect your card and sign up for a trial week. In reality, it only offers a weak replacement for lorem ipsum. And you need to pay for it once the trial ends :(
5. Alex
This is a tool with a cool and useful idea, but not a very successful implementation. The plugin searches for pieces of copy that may be discriminatory based on various criteria: gender, race, national origin, etc. Exactly what we need now when inclusivity is a must!
Unfortunately, there are a couple of drawbacks:
- The plugin checks the entire tab at once, so the check may take a couple of minutes depending on the number of screens.
- After checking, it displays all text labels in a row with a comment on accessibility/inclusivity. It is impossible to view only the problem texts or to remove duplicate labels from all screens.
- The plugin is quite strict in its approach to checking: it flags even words like special, failed, joint, period (in the sense of a period of time), and language names such as German, Chinese, and Japanese, as dangerous.
Yes, it is completely free and has an absolutely lovely idea behind it, but it is truly inconvenient.
6. Spellchecker
A spell checker that doesn’t check.
Well, it used to work and check for spelling errors, but at some point, it stopped working. The plugin’s page on Figma is filled with comments from users asking for it to be fixed, but it seems like no one is supporting the plugin. It’s free, but I don’t recommend wasting your time trying it out.
In conclusion
Well, that was some big list of plugins.
In our team, we use Writer on a daily basis: we’ve added custom rules and check texts in Figma and outside of it according to those rules, and also keep terminology there. The browser extension allows us to maintain consistency in texts even in work tools like Google Docs, Jira tickets, and chats.
From time to time, I also use Ghost UX writer and a plugin for tracking progress. Plus, some not very text-related plugins for adding stickers, notes, and to-do lists.
Thanks for reading this. Wish you convenient editing and beautiful mockups! Share in the comments what tools do you use when working with copy in Figma?
P.S. I want to say a big thank you to my colleagues-editors — Alexey and Lyuba. Without you, this research wouldn't have been so comprehensive, deep, and useful!
