Dear all, welcome to this video dedicated to Canva, one of the best online
editors you can use to make digital content for free! You can create social
media designs, office documents and presentations, simple website pages
and also edit images and videos, all in a single tool. It also comes with
thousands of free templates, samples and 5GB of cloud storage!
You may go for a subscription plan to extend free content, increase the
cloud storage to 1TB and especially be able a make teams and co-work with
your friends and colleagues. In this video we are going to see all the
features offered by the free version.
To start using Canva simply create an account and either go to canva.com
or install the dedicated app for a much better and faster performance.
Canva opens on its Home page with loads of templates you can start from.
You can do three main things with Canva: make graphic designs or videos for
social media; work with documents and presentations and edit pictures
quickly.
Let's start making graphic projects, also called Designs. These are made of
shapes, stickers, text and media and are divided in projects to be shared
online (such as Social media) and projects ready to be printed (called
Print products). The only difference between these is the project size:
make sure to pick the correct one between socials, postcards or flyers as
the free version of Canva does not allow you to resize an existing project at
a later stage.
You can always go to Custom size in the top right corner to create a new
Design with your own size in pixels.
Let's pick an Instagram Post. This opens a blank design with the correct
size for the platform, on a single page or multiple ones as you need.
Adjust the zoom level with your mouse wheel while holding down the CTRL
(or CMD) key.
On the left go to Design to pick any ready template to edit on the preview,
selecting any element and modifying it.
Switch to Elements to add further objects including lines, shapes,
graphics, media files, audio and much more! Open Uploads to import your own
files instead and click on Text to add title headings and simple text as
body text.
Let's see how to edit each element. Click on any to select it and
right-click to copy, paste, delete, change order or add links to any Canva
project or directly to a website page.
Drag the element to move it, use its nodes to scale and another to rotate
it. Undo anytime with CTRL (or CMD) and Z.
You can also double-click on text and shapes to type in, clicking outside
to apply.
On top adjust the properties for the element selected. On shapes you can
change type, fill color, border style, weight, corner rounding and border
color. You can also adjust the font, size, font color, style, alignment or
even make lists. On the right make text uppercase, apply
Transparency to the entire element or enable Lock to block any modification
on it, until you unlock it.
When selecting images, stickers or graphics you can click on Edit image to
correct brightness, contrast and color intensity with saturation or even
apply amazing effects and smartmockups. Always use CTRL (or CMD) and Z to
undo.
Click on Crop to crop the image and on Flip to flip it horizontally or
vertically.
When you select videos go to Edit video to add effects or correct colors
and lights on it and click on the scissors on the top to trim the video by
dragging its violet edges, applying with Done. Go to Playback to change the
video speed, loop the video or enable autoplay on it.
If you add any audio element this is shown in the bottom left corner so
that you can play and stop it by clicking on it. You can also check its
audio waveform on top, correcting its volume level and removing it with the
buttons on the right.
You can also select the page on the background to change its color and its
total duration on top. Whereas use the small buttons to change the order,
lock the page, copy it or remove it.
Go to Animate to add animations to either the selected element or the
entire page shown on the preview. Check these out!
To get a preview of your design click on the play button in the top right
corner and use Share to share it with other people using Canva or to get
online link with proper permissions. You can also go to Download to
download the project in your computer with proper file format and
content to export. Consider that all projects in Canva are automatically
saved on the cloud.
Click on the Home button to come back to the home page.
Create a new Whiteboard project to take notes, make exercises or
brainstorming. This is simply a Design project with unlimited size.
You can drop sticky notes, shapes, graphics, media, your own files or any
piece of text and manage these elements as seen.
At the bottom add new pages, manage the existing ones or click on Timer to
add a timer for your exercises. Make sure to share or download the project
from the top right corner.
With Canva you can also make Presentation! Pick the right size and build
it as you do with Designs, adding and editing pages as slides and importing
elements as needed. On each page you can add a transition to the next page
and proper animations on each single element with Animate on top.
When selecting any page or element you can click on the comment icon on
the right to add notes or mention someone to ask feedback from within
Canva!
To check the result click on Preset in the top right corner. Canva supports
professional options such as a live direct link to the presentation, a full
presenter view and great shortcuts to run timers or amazing effects for
your audience! You can also select Present and record to record yourself
while presenting, sharing the resulted video online or simply downloading
it.
If the presentation sounds good you can share it or download it as seen for
other projects.
With Canva you can also realize simple website pages! Pick any template and
add and edit elements as you like. The project represents a single website
page made by several Canva pages joined together setting its length.
You can manage each page with the left buttons and adjust the background
color on top.
Click on Preview to get a quick preview of the website in a desktop and
smartphone browser and go to Publish Website to upload the page on any free
Canva domain as .my.canva.site.
With Canva you can also realize videos for social media! Select the correct
size and then pick the right template to start from on the left. In these
video projects the Canva pages are single storyboard videos, placed in
order with time. You can create a new page to add videos, elements or text
or edit an existing one to customize its content. You can also upload your
images and videos to drag them at the bottom in a dedicated storyboard.
In video projects the audio element is shown with its audio waveform that
can be moved and also trimmed by dragging its edges.
You can adjust the page length by dragging its edges and also right-click
on it to delete it, split it in time or add transitions to the next page.
If the video is ready preview it with the Play button in the top right
corner and go to Share to share it or download it.
Now Canva allows you to write a document or Doc! This starts with a heading
and then a body paragraph when you start with a new line with the Enter
key.
The document extends at the bottom automatically as you type in.
On the left pick templates and import elements such as tables, charts,
graphics and media. You can also click on the plus button to add more
headings, subheadings and several lists, including bulleted, numbered or
check lists, exiting with the Enter key twice.
In a Doc project you may not move elements freely. Each text stays on its
own line, so the other elements. You can still drag to move these in
another line.
You can also select any element or text and adjust its properties on top
as seen. To add hyperlinks you have to select any text and click on the
Link button on top.
When selecting charts you can adjust their series data on the left and
their appearance on top. Whereas on tables you can change the background
color and the borders for the current table cell and use the plus buttons
to add rows or columns, dragging their borders to adjust width.
If your document is ready you can go to Share to share it or download it as
a PDF document with several different standard sizes.
All your Canva projects and uploaded files are saved on the cloud under the
Projects section on the left, from the Home page or any preview.
If you need to quickly edit any photo you can go to Create a design, Edit
photo to upload the photo and apply effects, add color corrections or crop
it. Then you can open it in a new Design project to add elements on it or
save it online or download it.
Thank you very much for watching this guide! Make sure to check our YouTube
channel and our website to learn more and for free!