Handy Canva Tips and Tricks

Canva is an incredible, easy to use design platform that is full of many different useful tools. There’s so many that it can be hard to keep up with all the features! If you’re not sure what Canva is, give our blog Canva for Beginners a read. In short, Canva is a graphic design platform that can be used to create many different designs such as social media graphics, posters, presentations, resumes and many more!

In this blog we will share with you all our favourite tips and tricks for using Canva. 

Tip 1 – Creating Animated GIFs

Adding animation to your social media content is a great way to upgrade your feed and capture your audience’s attention. Canva has a great GIF creating tool that is super easy to use! 

To create a GIF follow the steps below 

Step 1

Create or open an existing design. 

Step 2 

Click on the Page that you want to animate. Then simply click the Animate button on the toolbar next to the colour selector. 

Step 3

Choose the animation that you want to apply to the elements in your design. If you hover your mouse over the options it will preview the effect. There are a few animation options that you can choose from in the free version of Canva. As expected Canva Pro has more options available, but it is totally doable to create awesome GIFs with the free version! The animation will be applied to the elements and text on the page. 

You can also edit how long you want the animation to play for. This can be found in the toolbar on the left side. 

Step 4

When you are happy with your design, simply click the download button and choose the GIF option. 

Tip 2 – Canva Color Wheel

Have a specific colour palette in mind but not sure on a design yet? Canva’s Color Wheel allows you to choose the colours you want to use on your design and it will bring up a selection of templates that you can use. It’s that easy! Find the Color Wheel here https://www.canva.com/colors/color-wheel/ 

The color wheel also goes into detail about colour theory if you are curious about what colours look best together. 

Tip 3 – Shortcuts

Shortcuts can save you so much time when creating your designs. We have compiled a bunch of shortcuts that we find super useful when creating designs. 

Scale Proportionally

If you want to scale elements in your design proportionally, simply hold the SHIFT key and drag the element out. You can scale out elements using either the side handles or the corner handles. 

Moving Elements

If you want to move an element by one pixel, simply use your arrow keys. If you want to move an element by ten pixels, use the arrow keys whilst holding the SHIFT key.

Text 

To add a textbox simply just press the T key. To transform the text to uppercase press CTRL/Command + Shift + K. 

You can quickly align text by using shortcuts. If you want to align your text to the left, click on the text box and press CTRL/Command + Shift + L. This also works for aligning text to the right, just press the R key instead of the L key. To centre align, press CTRL/Command + Shift + C. 

To copy style to another text box press CTRL/Command + ALT/Option + C. To then paste that style, simply press CTRL/Command + ALT/Option + V. 

Other Useful Shortcuts 

To add a line press the L key. To add a rectangle, press the R key. Duplicate elements by pressing CTRL/Command + D. Group products by pressing CTRL/Command + G, to ungroup press SHIFT + CTRL/Command + G. Zoom in and out by pressing CTRL/Command + + or –.

Tip 4 – Lock Elements

If you’re creating a design that has many elements super close to one another or they are stacked on top of each other, you can lock them in place. This way you can’t accidentally move around elements when completing the rest of your design. 

Locking elements is super easy. SImply click on the element or group of elements you want to lock in place and click the padlock icon. This is located on the right side of the toolbar. 

Want to now unlock those items? No worries, simply select the elements you want to unlock and click the padlock icon. Too easy!

Tip 5 – Using Rulers and Guides

Did you know that Canva has rulers and guidelines that you can use to perfectly align your design elements? 

If you want to bring up the ruler and the guides, simply click the file button and select Show Rulers and Show Guides. Once the ruler has been selected, you can click on the ruler (either the top ruler or the side ruler) and drag it down to an element to create a guideline. From there a guideline will appear and you can use that to perfectly align your elements!

Canva is full of so many cool little tools that make designing so incredibly easy, you don’t even need the pro version! We can’t wait to see your stunning designs made using Canva. If you need some help with your social media content, get in touch with us today and we’ll get you sorted!