Hello! I have some designs created in Figma and I’m looking to transform them into components using React and Material UI. I’ve searched extensively but haven’t found a clear path for this conversion.
Is this conversion possible? If so, how effective are the results? Any advice on whether it’s better to use automated tools or stick with manual methods would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your help!
Been through this tons of times - there’s definitely a sweet spot that works. Full automation never gives you production-ready code, but newer tools like Figma’s Dev Mode can spit out decent React component starting points. Just treat whatever it generates as scaffolding, not finished code. I usually export the basic structure and styling, then refactor it with proper semantic HTML and React patterns. For Material UI, don’t bother converting generic divs - just figure out which MUI components match your Figma elements and build those directly. The CSS custom properties and design tokens are actually pretty useful though. I’ll often extract those programmatically and build my theme around them.
Converting Figma to React is totally doable if you do it right. Skip the export plugins - they’re garbage. Instead, use Figma’s inspect panel to grab exact measurements, colors, and typography specs. Treat Figma as your design system, not a code generator. First, I pull out all the design tokens - spacing, colors, font weights. Then I set up my Material UI theme with those values. After that, I build components one by one, checking Figma for pixel-perfect styling. This takes longer upfront but you’ll thank yourself later. Clean, maintainable code that actually matches the design. Plus way easier to add responsive breakpoints or make changes down the road.
Yeah, you can convert Figma designs to React components, but the quality varies a lot. I’ve tried several conversion tools over the years - they’ll give you basic component structures, but you’ll spend tons of time cleaning up afterward. The automated CSS is usually a mess with absolute positioning everywhere and zero responsive design. For Material UI, these tools almost never map Figma elements to actual MUI components properly. Honestly, I just use Figma as reference and build components manually now. You end up with way cleaner, maintainable code. The time you think you’re saving with automation gets eaten up by cleanup, so for production apps where code quality matters, just go manual.
Yeah, agreed. Figma plugins that export to React usually spit out messy code - inline styles everywhere and zero organization. Not worth the hassle. I’d rather code it myself and actually make it look decent. You’ll pick up way more skills doing it manually anyway.
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