I’ve been exploring different Figma component libraries and design systems recently. Many of them have this cool feature where you can click a button and it copies design elements or code snippets directly to your clipboard.
I’m working on a project for a customer and need to create something similar. The tricky part is understanding how the copy mechanism actually works behind the scenes. I’ve spent quite a bit of time searching online but haven’t found clear documentation or tutorials explaining the technical implementation.
Does anyone know the specific approach or methodology used to build this clipboard copying feature? Any insights or examples would be really helpful for my current project.
Easiest approach I’ve seen: simple button with onclick handlers that grab the text/code you want copied. Design system sites like Material UI or Ant Design use the clipboard API - navigator.clipboard.writeText() handles it all. Nothing fancy needed, just handle the promise properly and throw in a toast notification when it copies.
I’ve built design token systems across several projects, and the clipboard part really depends on how you structure your data. The best systems I’ve seen store everything as structured data first, then render it as copyable snippets. The copying itself is easy with modern browsers - focus on the data transformation layer instead. I built one where we pulled Figma styles through their API, normalized everything into a consistent schema, then generated different output formats on demand. The clipboard button just grabbed whatever format the user picked. Performance matters when you’re dealing with big component libraries. Cache the transformed snippets instead of generating them every time someone hits copy. And definitely add proper error handling - clipboard permissions get weird depending on the browser context.
The clipboard functionality you’re asking about is not inherently a feature of Figma itself; rather, it is often integrated into documentation sites built around design systems. Typically, these sites leverage the JavaScript Clipboard API for the actual copying. When users press the copy button, the JavaScript code takes the desired content and sends it to the clipboard through navigator.clipboard.writeText() for text items or navigator.clipboard.write() for more complex structures. I’ve implemented similar functionality in the past for a documentation site. It’s worth noting that you should consider adding fallback mechanisms for older browsers, which may require using document.execCommand(‘copy’). Usually, the content managed through this feature includes formatted code snippets, CSS properties, or design tokens, which can be either stored in data attributes or fetched dynamically upon user interaction.
I’ve built a few internal design systems, and it really comes down to whether you’re making a Figma plugin or a separate docs site. For plugins, you’re stuck with Figma’s API constraints. You’ll handle clipboard stuff through message passing between the main and UI threads. The plugin grabs elements with figma.currentPage.selection, formats them, then sends to clipboard. Most design systems I’ve seen actually use external docs sites that pull from Figma’s REST API. Way easier to implement standard web clipboard functionality. You just need custom formatting logic for design tokens, component props, or CSS snippets. Either way, you need a solid data structure that maps your Figma components to whatever output formats you want.
I’ve built design system docs before, and here’s what works: create a web-based docs layer that sits next to your Figma files. The clipboard part uses standard web APIs, but the real challenge is organizing your design tokens and components so they’re easy to copy. I store design tokens in JSON, then convert them on the fly to whatever format people need - CSS variables, SCSS mixins, JS objects, whatever. You’ll need proper CORS setup and content type handling. Pro tip: Figma’s API lets you pull design tokens automatically, so you can build a pipeline that keeps your docs synced with Figma. This setup has kept our design system consistent without much manual work.