: Open source software capable of open Sketch files I have received several .sketch files from a graphic designer. I assume these files were created by SketchApp, which is a propietary software.

@Chiappetta793

Gravit Designer is not open source, however it is free, and it opens & edits sketch files

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@Berumen635

While not open-source, it is worth checking out Figma Design. They have a free account and have a Sketch import option which would allow you to do what you described with no financial commitment.

An even better solution would to get your designer to use a tool like Zeplin which would allow them to sync the designs directly to a web-accessible url that you can view comps in their entirety and also inspect to get colours, type sizes, etc.

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@Murray664

There is a free (but not open-source) photo editor Photopea, that can open Sketch files. After opening, you can edit it, save as JPG PNG, etc.
blog.photopea.com/photopea-2-6-can-open-sketch.html
** I am an author of Photopea

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@Samaraweera207

Also there is a free tool - Icons8 Lunacy, that helps you to open .sketch files. It allows to copy CSS of any object and copy plain text for any text layer.

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@Odierno310

I'm using app.sketchviewer.com to view designs. Works very well.

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@Hamaas979

While not open source, SketchTool is free and from the same company.

It's advertised as


An OS X command-line app for exporting Pages and Slices out of .sketch documents.


I don't know if that means that you can export to .pdf, but I'd assume that you can at least export to something that's not .sketch. Otherwise this command line tool would be almost useless.

Given that they also make the app, compatibility is ensured.

I see 2 possible workflows:


You install SketchTool on your machine and run it on all the shared files before opening them. This has the least impact on the designer and you are in full control of when the conversion happens.
There's a problem with 1., which can be found on the website linked above:


SketchTool can only export a document if all the fonts that it uses have been installed on the system.


If your designer does use some fancy font that you don't have, you could run into issues. Maybe it replaces missing fonts with standard ones, but this obviously changes the result, which could impact your review work, depending on how important special font are.

To circumvent this, you could install SketchTool on the designer's computer and let him do the exporting. It's probably a good idea to set up some script that runs in the background and automatically executes SketchTool, when new .sketch files are saved (or existing ones updated). This allows the designer to keep his existing workflow and prevent him from forgetting to run this command line thing that does stuff with the files which could potentially be very alien to him/her.

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@Moriarity648

Have you tried using Invision? Not really an open-source solution but it is free and platform-independent.

The designer can keep syncing sketch files throughout the day and you can view them at once. You can even comment on specific parts of the mock-up!

Invision solved this problem for our workflow. The devs (like me) are on Linux while the designers are on Mac. If the designer is meticulous enough, you can even download assets straight from Invision to implement the design.

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@Smith574

Since Sketch is a fairly new program I do not think there would be software at this moment that will open the files.

I would suggest you ask the designer to export the sketch files in a common format such as:


PNG
JPG
PDF
TIFF


If you ever want to work on the files and might have something like Inkscape or enjoy code have them export it out as SVG.




Addendum Exporting a PDF is a valid solution, but I would like to take
a look at the .sketch files at our shared folder during the workday
without asking for a PDF export every few hours (the designer works
from home, so I can't just drop by to his desk).


Then you're just going to have to buy the software to view the files.

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@Mendez620

Sketch is capable of exporting PDF files. I would simply ask the designer to send you a PDF version of the art; any other solution will be overly convoluted.

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