Canva Basics by sensequotes

CANVA BASICS

CONTENTS 03

STARTING WITH NEW DESIGN

BASIC TEXT EDITING

SCALING AND CROPPING

INTRO TO FRAMES AND GRIDS

USING CANVA VIDEOS

ELEMENTS IN CANVA

EDITING PHOTOS

HOW TO ADD MUSIC

USING PREDEFINED STYLES

ADD AND EDIT CHARTS

FILE TYPES IN CANVA

USING LAYERS

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

FOREWORD

Canva Basics is short introduction guide for those who are just starting with Canva. I hope more chapters will be added soon and Advanced Canva book is on its way, so keep your eyes on my Instagram account @sensequotes for latest news and additions. Get Full book >>> https://gumroad.com/l/cXMQT Thank you for reading. Becky

@SENSEQUOTES

STARTING WITH NEW DESIGN When you login on Canva you are presented with Home page. On the right top of the page there are few options for you like search, help and settings buttons, profile button and "Create a design" button.

Click on "Create a design" button. First two options you can choose are "+ Custom size" and "Start with an image".

Below are suggested options. There are many suggested options to choose from like Poster, Infographic, Instagram Post, Logo, Video etc. But this is only a part of everything Canva offers. If you scroll down the suggested options you can see there are no Twitter templates. Now type Twitter in search box at the top of drop down menu. Voila! You are offered with many Twitter related templates.

Click on Quote Twitter Post. Now you are in edit design mode. On the left side are templates you can use to start with or you can begin from scratch. Some templates are paid some are free. Hover with mouse over template thumbnail and if template is free you will see "free" text on the bottom right side of the thumbnail image. Click on the template and begin editing.

You can edit every element of the template.

BASIC TEXT EDITING Start with a new design. From the left side menu click on Text button and than choose "Add a heading", "Add a subheading" or "Add a little bit of body text". As an alternative you can just press letter T on your keyboard. You will get dummy "Your paragraph text".

Above canvas is the top menu with basic editing options for text. Text must be selected for menu to be visible. These are standard options when working with text. You can choose font, size of the font and color.

You can turn your letters to uppercase and lowercase. You can align text left, right, centered and justify. You can make a list with numbers and dots and adjust spacing for letters and line height. One more useful option you have is effects.

You have several effects to apply to your text: shadow, lift, hollow, splice, echo, glitch, neon and curve. Each of these effects have their own adjustable parameters. For example if you use shadow effect you can set offset, direction, blur, transparency and color. For lift effect you can set intensity. Same for other effects. You can move, rotate and scale your text box by moving handles and using rotate and move buttons below text box. Advanced tip: Place your mouse pointer away from text box but on the canvas and press alt on keyboard (Win). You will get text box position in relation to edges.

SCALING AND CROPPING Start with a new design. From the main left menu click on Photos button and than click any free image to place it on canvas.

There are two different kind of handles, scale handles and crop handles. Scale handles are the ones in corners (circles) and crop handles are the ones in the middle of edges (rectangles). By using scale handles image is scaled towards the opposite corner. By using scale handles with ALT keyboard key (Windows) image is scaled towards image center.

By using crop handles images is cropped from the same side, but if you press ALT keyboard key (Windows) image is cropped from the same and opposite side at the same time. Very handy, right? If you try to scale the image outside of canvas it will not be visible.

You can also select crop option from the top menu (first select image). In this mode only visible part of the image is clear, while hidden part is blurred. You can move image around, crop it or scale it. Click inside image to move it.

When you are finished click Done button on top menu to exit this mode.

INTRO TO FRAMES AND GRIDS Start with a new design. On the left side menu click on Elements tab (button). Scroll down a little bit and you will see different categories, among them are Frames and Grids.

You can click on "see all" text to expand only Frames or only Grids elements. Another way of doing it is to select Elements and than type Frames (or Grids) in search box and press Enter on keyboard. Now scroll down to see all available Frames and click on any of them. All Frames and Grids have the same placeholder graphic. Go back to Photos tab and drag any photo directly onto placeholder graphic on your canvas. Image will fill only that area.

You can now manipulate entire Frame (scaling and cropping) like it is a single element. Grids are similar to Frames but the difference is that you can use multiple images with Grids.

USING CANVA VIDEOS Start with a new design. From left side menu select Videos tab (button). There are two ways to place video file on your canvas as background. First one is to drag file thumbnail from library onto canvas and release it just when you cross the canvas border. If you drop it in the middle of the canvas video will not expand to whole canvas. Another way is to click on the thumbnail in library. Video is placed on canvas. Now right click on video and select "Set Video as Background".

Click on video and options will appear in top menu.

Click Trim button (scissors icon) to open edit track. Here you can move start and end handles to adjust video length.

Click done button on the right side when you are finished to apply changes and go back to canvas. With crop button you can change which part of the video is visible. Click and drag image to adjust position. Click done button on left side when you are finished to apply changes.

When you are done with editing you can download your creation in MP4 or GIF format.

Q&A I have free account, can I use Background Remover in Canva? Background Remover feature is found when you select photo and choose Effects from menu, but this option is only available for Pro users. However you can easily remove background by downloading it and use some of the free web services like remove.bg (free for up to 1/4 megapixels and for personal use) or Photoscissors (image size 5 Mb max and max resolution 2.1 Mb) where you can also manually fix some small errors, something you can't do with remove.bg. How can I copy my design to add some details, but leave old version?

While you are on your design page, on the top menu click on File and than choose Make a copy. This will make a copy of your design. Notice on top menu your new design is named copy of 'old design name'. Another way to do it is to select all with CTRL+A and copy it with CTRL+C (Windows), then select File and Create new design. When new design page is open paste your design with CTRL+V. You can now alter your copy without ruining your older version. Can I resize my design with free account? There is resize option for Pro users, however there is a way to resize your design even with free account.

First copy your design with CTRL+A and CTRL+C (Windows). Click on File and Create new design from top menu. Click Custom dimensions and enter 5000 x 5000 pixels and then paste your design with CTRL+V. Use resize handles to expand your design. In this way, when you are finished you can have large file which you can easily shrink as you like.

Got a question? Send me DM via my IG account: SENSEQUOTES

Disclaimer Author is not associated in any way with Canva software or its owners. Usage of images used in this e-book falls under the guidelines of fair use. ÂŠ All right reserved version 1.2 - January 2021.