If you find yourself working in Canva and without the
external mouse, you need not worry because in this video,
we will see some quick
controls to alter the length and breadth of any element,
picture and shape. And you can also resize text or any element
that can be resized in Canva. Watch till the end because I
also listed out the details in a card, and you can take a
screenshot of it and save it for your records.
Let's get started. All right, three things before we begin
this video - First, whenever I say Alt key, that's because
I'm using a Windows computer, and if you are using a Mac, it
should be Option key for you. And these tricks may not work
in the mobile version of Canva. Second, we're going to
see four different ways of altering the length and
breadth of the elements, namely measuring, moving,
rotating and resizing. And third thing we are going to
use these combinations of keys Alt Shift Control, Angle
brackets and the Arrow keys so with the permutations and
combinations of these keys, we are going to see how to
measure, move, rotate and resize the elements. Measuring
- when it comes to measuring the Alt key is what we are
going to use to show the measuremental guidelines for
any of the elements. And in here, you can also see the
distance between two elements or the element's own distance
itself within the Canva's layout, the page layout here.
So whenever you have an element selected, just hit the
Alt key on your keyboard and it shows these measurement
guidelines here, from left to right, top and bottom. So you
can see these are measured in pixels. Although it is counter
intuitive, you just have to play around with the mouse
pointer here because wherever the mouse pointer is placed,
then the measurement guidelines takes its relative
distance on where the mouse pointer is placed. For
example, now this pointer is placed here on the Canva
itself, I mean, the page itself. So whenever the
element is selected and I'm going to hit the Alt key now,
you can see that the measurement guidelines are
showing in relative to the page itself. But what if we
want to see the distance between two elements here? For
example, this one and this one here, I'm going to place my
mouse cursor on this element. No, no clicking just place it
on top of it. And while this element is selected, I'm just
placing the mouse cursor on top of this and hitting the
Alt key. You can see that the distance between these two
elements are 714 pixels if you want to see for with the text.
Just move the mouse around here. No need to click this.
Just move the mouse around and move it over here to see its
distance. And you can see and get the idea that to measure
the distance between two elements, this is how we do.
Keep pressing the Alt key and move your mouse pointer to
show the distance between these two. I know it's
counterintuitive to not to use like this is all about
keyboard shortcuts, but we still want to see for
measurement purposes, use the most pointer on finding its
relative distance between the elements and the page itself.
So that's about measuring. Next, about moving elements.
Now this one is pretty simple. We're just going to use the
arrow key for moving an element one pixel moving this
particular element, one pixel. I'm using my keyboard arrow
keys here. You can see that this element is moving one
pixel at a time. If we want to move this 10 pixels at a time,
then use the Shift and the Arrow key combinations. So
this moves 10 pixels. Like this, so in both these
situations, either you use the shift key or without the shift
key if you use the Alt key combination, this also shows
the measurement guidelines from the sides or in relation
to other elements present on your page. So I'm going to hit
the alt key and move it. And if you place the mouse cursor
on top of this element and use the alt key and move it, it
will still show the distance between these two elements
that we are covering in between while moving the
element as well. So let's say if you want to precisely place
in between these two elements a gap of two hundred pixels,
then you can use this option by hitting the Alt key, shift
key and then moving the elements. And now we have a
precise 200 pixel gap in between these two elements. So
that was about moving the elements with precise
measurement guidelines. Now next, with the rotating of the
elements, with just using the keyboard combinations. How do
we do that? For this, I'm going to use the control and
the alt key and the angle brackets to rotate by one
pixel - control + alt and the angle brackets - so you can
see that these are rotating. I'm hitting the right angle
bracket now to rotate anti-clockwise and the left
angle bracket to rotate it clockwise by one pixel. And if
we want to rotate this by 10 pixels, then you can also hit
the shift key along with control alt and the left angle
bracket. And please note that in this case, it only rotates
clockwise if you want to rotate by 10 pixels. So I'm
going to hit the control alt shift and only the left angle
bracket works here - not the right angle bracket, and this
rotates clockwise. The right angle bracket doesn't work in
this case. Only the left angle bracket. So I'm hitting the
control alt shift and the left angle bracket to rotate this
element by 10 pixels clockwise, one by one. I
cannot even keep pressing this. I have to do it one by
one. So that's about rotating 10 pixels clockwise. Next, I'm
going to use the shift and the angular brackets to keep
rotating both ways. This way, now how hitting the left angle
bracket and shift key combination. And this one is
the shift key combination and the right angle bracket to
rotate anticlockwise. Again, we cannot keep pressing this
continuously. We can only do it one at a time. So these
were all about rotating the elements, now how about
rotating the text element? Let's see that. I'm going to
select the text element and I'm going to use the control
and alt and angle brackets to do it one by one.
So this rotates one pixel at a time
clockwise, I'm hitting the left angle bracket and with
the right angle bracket, this rotates anticlockwise one
pixel at a time. Again, we cannot keep pressing this to
rotate in one go in a faster pace, because if you keep
pressing the combination, this will start adjusting the
letter spacing. Let me show you that - I'm going to hit
the control alt and the right angle bracket. Keep pressing
it continuously. And that's going to adjust the letter
spacing now I'm hitting the control alt and the left angle
bracket, and that adjusts the letter spacing, it reduces the
letter spacing here, so we don't want to do that. And
finally, if you want to rotate a text element by 10 pixels
again, only clockwise, then you can use the control alt
shift and left angle bracket only. To move it one at a
time, I mean, 10 pixels at a time, so that's all about
rotating. Finally about resizing elements. So here if
you note that we have resizing options on the corners as well
as the edges, but on some elements, we only have it at
the corners. So resizing only works whenever you have an
element with the adjustment handles on the corner as well
as the edges. It doesn't work on elements with only the
corners. So let's pick this one for this demo, and I'm
going to hit control and the arrow keys to resize it by one
pixel control and the arrow keys to resize it by one
pixel. Like this. Right now, I'm hitting the right arrow
and now the down arrow. If you see this rotation, rotating
icon here, this means it is at the bottom. So let's keep the
shape straight at zero degrees, and now I'll display
the demo here. So control and right arrow resizes this
element towards the right side and down key resizes it at the
down, left one reduces it and up arrow reduces it from the
bottom. And this resizing is now getting done with one
pixel at a time. If you want to do it in one go for ten
pixels, use the shift combination - so control shift
and arrow keys to resize by 10 pixels. So I told you, this
only works if you have the edge, as well as the corner
handles, adjustment handles. But if you do not have that,
then it wouldn't work. I'm hitting the control and the
arrow keys now, but there's no resizing happening here,
neither with the shift key. So we just saw moving, rotating,
resizing and measuring options using the keyboard shortcuts.
And here's the list of all the keyboard shortcuts we just
saw. You can take a screenshot now, or you can also download
this as a cheat sheet. Just check the link in the
description. Now, here's a bonus tip. I know the motive
of this video is to show only the keyboard shortcuts and
mouse is banned. But this tip could easily fit into a hybrid
model of using mouse and the keyboard shortcut, especially
if you are someone who uses both the mouse and keyboard
shortcuts. And this is for duplicating elements quickly.
Here's what you do. Select an element and drag it while
pressing the alt key. And voila! you have it duplicated.
Of course, if you are a keyboard purist, then Control
D also duplicates the elements.
Thank you for watching, I hope you liked this video and
learned something new. If so, please hit on that like button
and click on subscribe, if not already done, and you can also
watch my other videos that I made with the Canva free
version that's available here in this playlist by click on
this thumbnail. I'll see you again in another video, until
then, you please keep creating because your success is just
around the corner. I mean it. Thank you. Bye. You take care!