10 Best Canva Tips & Tricks That Will Blow Your Mind

We all need an application to easily create visually appealing designs and templates for school, business, social media content or work. Not all are accustomed to using applications like Adobe Photoshop or InDesign as these make use of more advanced features that aren’t very beginner-friendly. Hence, it would take time to learn. These applications best fit professional digital designers or artists.

But what about those who don't know much about designing or creating digital art?

Here is a user-friendly software that caters to all. Canva aims to empower the world to design by offering features and tools that can be used by anyone. People can start designing with just a few easy clicks.

What is Canva?

Canva offers pre-designed templates which you can mix and match with other colors and elements, video editing tools like motion graphics and filters as well as resizing settings for images.

This would be best for those who are beginners in design, are running a business and need an easy-to-use tool or students who need to create presentations or projects for class.

If you’ve just started your subscription to Canva or are planning to, here are the 10 best Canva tips and tricks that will blow your mind.

1. Upload Images Using the Drag and Drop Feature

It’s quite a hassle to upload images one by one as it's time-consuming and can get confusing, especially if you’re uploading a lot. With Drag and Drop, you can easily upload an image from your device and transfer it to the Canva editor. In just a few seconds, the image will be uploaded to your account.

2. Adding QR Codes to Any Design

QR codes are now popular for businesses. With just one scan, consumers can be easily redirected to their website. They don’t have to manually type or copy and paste the URL. When creating marketing promotions, Canva offers a feature where you can already embed a QR code to the design with just three easy steps: Click More from the sidebar, choose the QR Code Generator which you can find under Apps and Integrations and add the URL.

3. Canva Animation

Adding animation can make your design stand out more. Canva offers six animation options for its free version and 13 for those who are subscribed to the Pro Plan. Once an element is placed on the editor page, the animation option will automatically pop up.

4. Unlimited Pre-Designed Templates

When rushing to meet deadlines, you don’t have a lot of time to create every design from scratch. Canva offers unlimited template designs to suit its users' different tastes. You can choose from minimal to colorful designs, all you need is to type your preferred design on the search tab.

5. Remove Background from Images

You can remove unwanted backgrounds from your images, especially if you’re going to include an image in your template. Sometimes, the background just doesn’t fit the theme. With just one click of the background remover tool, it will easily remove the background in just seconds. Note that this feature is only available for those who are subscribed to the Canva Pro Plan.

6. Adjusting Image Transparency

Images are an important element in a design, but they can get overpowering because of their colors, especially if there are too many elements in the template. With this feature, you can lessen the images’ transparency, up to what you think best suits the design.

7. Locking Elements

Having too many elements means you have to adjust their placements from time to time, but there are those you’d want to keep in place. When using the Lock tool, the elements are locked into their position, so you won’t have to disturb others in the design. Just choose one element and the Lock icon will appear.

8. Grouping Elements

Adjust the size of elements or move them with this feature. This makes it easier to just adjust spacing or arrangements without having to change the overall design. Just follow these two easy steps: Press and hold the Shift key and choose the elements to be adjusted, then click the Group button.

There’s also an option to use a keyboard shortcut:

For grouping the elements, choose the elements then Press Ctrl/Cmd + G. If you want to ungroup them, press Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + G.

9. Overlap the Objects

When creating your template from scratch, you have to add a lot of elements. With Canva, you can quickly arrange those elements by layering them. You can either choose to send them backwards or forward depending on the location you want to place them in. This helps you create an organized and appealing design.

10. Give comments in collaborative projects

You can now easily coordinate designs with your groupmates or workmates. This feature ensures that your comments and suggestions are not ignored. You won’t have to go through the hassle of sending out individual emails for revisions.

Canva Pricing

While Canva can be used for free, there are still limits in using its features. The free version only has 250,000 free templates while the Pro version offers 610,000 premium designs. If you only need the basic features, then there’s no problem in using the software for free. If you need the advanced settings for a more detailed design, then you should opt for the Pro version. The Enterprise plan has the same features as Pro, but it’s used by big companies or institutions for collaborative work as a minimum of 25 people can use the same account.

The Canva Pro Plan starts at $12.99/per month while the Enterprise is priced at $30/per month.