45

BASICS 43
 CONTENTS

03 STARTING WITH NEW DESIGN

06 BASIC TEXT EDITING
09 SCALING AND CROPPING
12 INTRO TO FRAMES AND GRIDS
14 USING CANVA VIDEOS

16 ELEMENTS IN CANVA
18 EDITING PHOTOS
21 HOW TO ADD MUSIC
23 USING PREDEFINED STYLES
25 ADD AND EDIT CHARTS
27 FILE TYPES IN CANVA
29 USING LAYERS
31 CREATE VIDEO SLIDESHOW
WITH MUSIC
36 MULTIPLE DROP SHADOWS

40 CREATE HONEYCOMB
PHOTO FRAME
44 NEON SLICE TEXT EFFECT

48 PLACE PHOTO INSIDE TEXT

53 REFLECTION EFFECT

57 SHATTER EFFECT

62 PIXEL STRETCH EFFECT

67 QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

69 CANVA HIDDEN GEMS
 FOREWORD

Canva Basics is introduction guide for those who are

just starting with design using Canva
More chapters will be added on regular basis so keep
your eyes on my blog for latest news and additions
Thank you for reading
Becky Smith

VISIT MY BLOG

SENSEQUOTES

LATEST
FREE BOOK >
 1
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".

3
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.
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You can edit every element of the template.

5
 2
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.

6
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.

7
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.

8
 3
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.

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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.

10
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.

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 4
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.

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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.

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 5
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".

14
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.
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 6
ELEMENTS IN CANVA

The real power of Canva are premade files you can use for your projects.
You can add photos, videos, music, background.
Besides this basic files there are also Elements, graphic elements you can
include.
First, start with new design. Click on Elements tab (button) on the left side
menu.
Scroll down to see all categories. Image shows basic ones like fetaured,
lines, shapes, frames, stickers, charts, grids, gradients.

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Next are specific subject graphic elements like Coronavirus, Bold Foliage,
Zodiac Symbols, Handdrawn Animals and many others.
You can expand a category by clicking 'see all' on the right side of
category name.
You can use search to find what you can't find in these categories.
Let's say you need graphics of planets. Type planets in search box and
voila!

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 7
EDITING PHOTOS

Click on Photos tab (button) on the left side menu and add any photo to
canvas (drag and drop or click).
Click on photo to select it and top menu appears. You are presented with
several options: Effects, Filter, Adjust, Crop, Flip on the left side and
Transparency on the right side.
Click on Effects button. Here you can find a lot of advanced effects you
can apply to your photo.

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Effects have many options so make sure to select "See all" and display
them all.
You can choose between Duotone, Pixelate, BadTV and below are the ones
you have to connect with first (by clicking on a button) like Screen,
ColorMix, Glitch, Liquify, Slice.
Click on See all button for Pixelate and let's explore this effect.
This is live preview of effects. Every time you click on any of variants like
Pixel, Grain, Polar, etc. effect is visible on your photo, but you have to click
Apply button if you want to apply the effect.
When you preview one of the options by clicking on the button, it changes
to indicate you can enter edit mode.

For Pixel you can change Horizontal Pixels and Vertical Pixels.
On the other hand Filter gives you a set of predefined filters you can
choose from like Epic, Retro or Drama. You can set Intensity for every
filter. Values are from 0 to 100. Filter are imidiately applied.

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Adjust option is standard photo editing option found in all photo editing
tools. You can edit Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Tint, Blur, X-Process
and Vignette.

Flip option gives you opportunity to flip the image horizontally and
vertically.
As you can see there are many things you can do to edit your photo in
Canva and in combinations with other features Canva becomes very
powerful tool.
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 8
HOW TO ADD MUSIC

Start with new design. Add any photo as background if you wish.
Click on Music tab (button) on the left side menu.
Click on any song to select it and add it to designer.
You will notice 2 things (besides music playing): Song title in the lower left
corner of designer and song track at the top.

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When you move your mouse over song track you see transparent rounded
rectangle. With a click you can set here which part of the song will be
included in your design.
Click outside of the canvas to set duration of your design. In this way you
can expand song duration.

Choose download as MP4 and you have produced nice video with music .

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 9
USING PREDEFINED STYLES

Start with new design.

Add heading and subheading to blank design.
On the left side menu click on Styles tab (button). If this button is not
visible you need to enable it. Scroll down to the bottom and click "... More"
tab (button). You will see Styles and Charts buttons. Click on Styles to add
it to menu.

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In this section there are 3 different types of styles: fonts, colors and all.
By choosing any style your whole design changes.
Image below shows design with no styling and when squada one predefined
style is applied.

You can easily shuffle colors of your design.

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 10
ADD AND EDIT CHARTS

In this tutorial you will learn basics of how to add and edit charts.
Start with a new design.
If Charts button is not visible on the left side menu, you need to enable it
first. Scroll to the bottom and click 3 dots More button. In submenu under
More from Canva text, click on Charts button.

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Right now Canva offers several types of Charts: Bar chart, Row chart, Line
chart, Area chart, Pie chart and Donut chart.
Click on the first chart in the second row (multiple bar chart). Chart with
default values is added to Designer. Click on it and you will get top menu
with editing buttons.

Here you can change chart colors, text font and size as well as text color
and style.
Click and change each of the colors.
Click on Edit button to change chart values.
On the left side is table with values. First column is chart column names by
default item 1, item 2 etc.
You can add new columns and chart is updated right away.

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 11
FILE TYPES IN CANVA

Although excellent in many things, Canva is not almighty tool. Sometimes

even million of predefined images and audio files are not enough to make
the design you want because Canva doesn't have template with your
company logo or photo of yourself.
That's the reason why there is option in Canva for you to upload your own
files.
When you create new document, on the left side menu click on Uploads tab
(button). You are presented with submenu where you can upload your
images, videos or audio files.

Currently you can, for images, upload files under 25 Mb in JPEG, PNG
formats. For SVG you have more restrictions since your file must be under
3 Mb, between 150 and 200 pixels wide and some optimizations are also
needed (see online documentation for more details).
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For audio files you can import MP3, M4A or WAV format under 250 Mb and
for video MOV, GIF or MP4 under 250 Mb.
Right now Free Canva users have 5 Gb storage and Pro and other users up
to 100 Gb.
When you are finished with your design you will want to download it. For
images you have option to download as JPG, PNG or SVG (for Pro users).
You can download documents as PDF Standard, PDF Print or PPTX
(Microsoft PowerPoint presentation). For Video you have GIF and MP4.

From the image above you can notice that SVG export option is not
available for free users, however there is easy workaround. First you can
use any of the free online tools for converting JPG images to SVG format
and second you can also use one of many image editing tools to do it, like
Inkscape (which is free).
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 12
USING LAYERS

This Chapter is quick overview of how to use layers in Canva. Imagine

layers as transparent slides. Each slide can have its own elements with
different transparency and style. Together, those slides form final design.
Layers are stacked on one another and elements on top most layer can
obscure elements in layers lower in the stack.
Unfortunately there is no separate panel for layers manipulation as with
other image editing software like Illustrator, Inkscape or Gimp.
Let's see how to add elements to layers. Create new design and type letter
R on your keyboard. This will add rectangle to your canvas. Change color of
the newly created rectangle to blue and scale it down a little bit. Next add
another rectangle, change color to yellow and scale it down a bit. As you
can see from the image below, yellow rectangle is placed last so it
occupies layer on top and blue rectangle is placed on bottom layer.

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Right click on the blue rectangle and menu appears with options to move
elements between layers. Since there is no elements below blue rectangle,
options Send to Back and Send Backward are not available. Click on Bring
Forward and you will raise blue rectangle above yellow one. Bring to Front
will do the same, but if there are several layers present, this option will
raise blue rectangle to the top layer (closest to the viewer).

Another way to accomplish same thing is to select the element you want
to move between layers and than on the top menu click on Position button.
This action opens dropdown menu with available options. Keyboard
shortcuts are also available.

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 13
CREATE VIDEO SLIDESHOW
WITH MUSIC
This is advanced tutorial, step by step guide on how to create video
slideshow with music in Canva.
Final result of this tutorial is video slideshow with animated effects and
music. This kind of videos are suitable for presentations, as social media
content and more. You can expand it and create entire video for your
YouTube channel if you are YouTube creator. Or you can simply put
together your own photos with your own song (music) and share it with
friends and family.
Let's get started. Click on Create a design button in top right corner and
select Instagram Post 1080 x 1080 as template.

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You can also select custom size if you already know what video size you
want to create, and if you don't just follow along with Instagram Post size.
Click on the Photos tab (button) in the left side menu. In Search box type
word Space and press Enter. When images are loaded scroll down a little
bit and take a look at which photos are free. Photos with tiny crown icon in
the right bottom corner are for pro users and since this tutorial and this
whole book is made so you can make things with free account find few free
photos you like and would like to use.
Select one image you like by clicking on it. When you do, that image is
transferred to designer canvas. Right click on the image and select Set
Image as Background. This will expand the image.

This is the first part of final video. Whole video will have four parts, at
least in this tutorial, so you need to create three more pages.
Below the canvas there is "+ Add page" button. When you click on it, empty
Page 2 is created. In the same way create Page 3 and Page 4. This is only
optional but you can add title to every page if you like, just click on text
that says "Add page title" on the right from Page number on top left side of
the page.
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Select image on first page and observe top menu and Animate button just
above the image. When you click on this button, Animation panel on the
left opens. There are currently 6 animation types you can choose from for
free accounts; from Block to Tumble and 6 for PRO accounts; from Drift to
Scrapbook. However for background image you can only apply Breathe
animation. Choose None to disable applied animation.
What we need for this tutorial are Photo Animations at the bottom of the
panel: Zoom, Flow or Rise.

Notice Apply to all pages checkbox below at the bottom of the panel.
Select Zoom animation and check the checkbox.
By default animation timing is set to 5 seconds. On the right top menu you
can now notice button with the right arrow and text 20.0 s. You can
probably guess that this shows duration of the entire design or final video
file we will download later. This is because we have 4 pages times 5
seconds, which is 20 seconds.
By navigating to other pages (scroll up and down inside designer panel) you
can change timing of individual page/image. This will reflect final video
duration.
Let's test this one. Scroll down to Page 2. Click on the Edit timing button
and set timing to 1 second. Click Done button and check final video
duration. It should show 16 seconds (5 + 1 + 5 + 5 = 16). Set timing of
Page 2 back to 5 seconds, we will change this later.
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This is the basic setup for our slideshow. You can expand this idea and add
more pages or change duration based on your needs.
Now, let's add some music. Select Music tab (button) on the left side
menu. In Search audio field on top type 'Wisdom in The Sun' and click on
the song. First thing you will notice (if your speakers are on) that song is
playing. Top menu is now something like track editor.

Greyed area of the track represents duration of entire video. How can you
control which part of the song will be included in your design? Very simply,
all you have to do is move your mouse over the track. Click on any part and
song starts to play from that location.
On the right side of the track you can see duration of the whole song. In
this case, for Wisdom in The Sun, duration is 2 minutes and 35 seconds, so
your audio cut will match your video duration.
Track has the form of the wave which helps you to start your cut in the
position when song is calmer if that is what you want. To fine tune position
of audio cut click and hold with your mouse. Track will expand and you can
see more details in the wave form. Nice trick to know about.
Click on individual pages and set duration for every slide separately
according to your needs. Maybe every slide will include some text and let's
say on first slide you have only one sentence but on second slide you have
five sentences. In that case you want a potential viewer to have enough
time to read the text, so you need to set first slide duration to 2 seconds
and second slide duration to 10 seconds or something like that.
Now let's say you want your text to appear a little bit later after slide
image is displayed. First copy your page. Leave first copy empty and set
duration to 2 seconds. Set animation to None. On the second copy enter
your text. Set animation to 4 seconds and select Animate Block (for
example). In this way you will get animated text that appears after 2
seconds of the slide start with Block animation. You can also continue this
sequence with another text and another etc. Nice, right?
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Your video is now ready for download. On the right top side click Download
button, select MP4 video if it is not already selected, choose All pages and
click blue Download button.
Your slideshow with music creation is ready to be shared and enjoyed.

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 14
MULTIPLE DROP SHADOWS

This is quick and simple step-by-step tutorial on how to create design with
multiple drop shadows in Canva. You don't need PRO account to follow
along.
Create new design and add desired photo to canvas. I chose a lovely
dinosaur photo. Here is final image you are going to make.

Duplicate your photo by either right click on it and copy / paste or by

holding alt on keyboard (for Windows) and dragging the photo.
36
Use crop handles (ones in the middle not in corner) to reduce first image
which will represent first design strip. Use crop handles on second photo
to reduce left side of the photo so it look like they are sliced (see next
image).

Shrink top and bottom side of the second image to achieve desired look.
Copy photo two more times and use same technique to makes third and
forth strips. Click R on your keyboard to create a rectangle. Reduce its size
and place it like on image on next page.
Repeat this process until you have entire frame. You may need to zoom in
more to make sure there are no gaps between rectangles.
Next you will need PNG image for drop shadows. This image is black
rectangle with wide transparent border. You can make it yourself by using
any free image editor (I use Paint.net from this website) or you can just
download PNG file from my blog on this page.
There is another option for making drop shadows. Click on Photos tab in
Canva and search for 'shadow'. There are few free transparent photos to
use. However I find first option with your own image (or mine) more
versatile.
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If you have PRO account you can easily make this file and export it as
transparent PNG, but this book is focused on using Canva with free
accounts, so this is a workaround.
Add image to your design. Adjust blur to 15, transparency to 60. You can
experiment with different values if you like. However, what you get is drop
shadow you will use. Try to scale and crop it and you will understand how
you can actually make any drop shadow you need with this image. Cute,
right?
Scale and crop drop shadow image and place it on the edges of second,
third and forth dino strip. Rotate if needed.
That’s it! Your final design is ready. You can add more drop shadows
outside of the frame or additional text etc, whatever you want.
Also you don't need to limit your design on these four strips, make them as
many as you want.

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Same drop shadow technique used here can be actually included whenever
you need it so it is kind of universal solution until Canva decides to add it
as a feature in some future version (I hope very soon).

39
 15
CREATE HONEYCOMB PHOTO FRAME

Honeycomb photo frame is design in some aspects similar to previous

tutorial. This technique of slicing a photo repeats often when working in
Canva so its a good idea to master it.
Here is the final design you are going to make in this chapter.

Start with creating a new design. Size doesn't matter much, I usually start
with Instagram post 1080 x 1080 or in some cases I use maximum 5000 x
5000 if I need high quality PNG for printing, for example. For this one I
started with IG post size.
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Add a background color if you like, something brighter because black drop
shadow below needs to be visible.
In the left side menu click on Elements tab (button). In the search field
type 'Frame hexagon' and click Enter on keyboard. Locate hexagon shape
Frame and place it on canvas by clicking on it.
Use scale handles (the ones in corners) to shrink the frame a little bit and
place it in the center. Make sure you are left with enough space for
additional 6 frames.

Click on Photos tab (button) in the left side menu and search for a photo
you want to add or upload your own photo.
Drag your photo over the hexagon frame and drop it. Double click on it. You
have entered photo editing mode.
Next step is important. Imagine where will be boundaries of other hexagons
and expand your photo (using scale handles) to cover all frames. If you
don't do this you will not be able to place image correctly across all frames
and you will have to start over until you make it work. Check image on next
page how the photo should be placed.
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Click on Done button in the left top to exit photo editing mode.
To duplicate other hexagons hold alt on keyboard and drag the frame or use
CTRL + C and CTRL + V shortcuts. Use keyboard arrows and zoom in to
precisely place second (and others) hexagon around first one to create a
honeycomb frame.
Double click on second hexagon to enter a photo editing mode again. Move
your photo until two images are overlapping. You will know they are
overlapping when no blur occurs.
Here is a trick how to place images the ease way. Click on File in top left
menu and make sure Show rulers and Show guides options are checked.
When you are finished with first hexagon and inside photo editing mode,
drag two guides from the edges to mark borders of the photo. Now placing
other photos is piece of cake, just snap them to guides.
When you place all the hexagons it's time to add a drop shadow.
We already discussed how to add drop shadow in previous chapter but this
one is circle not a square.
Again, if you have PRO account you can make the file by yourself. If you
have free account use any free image editor or try to search PNG file on
web. From this version these helper files are included with the book.
Upload circle.png file from files folder.
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Place black circle on the canvas by clicking on it. Click adjust and set blur
50 and transparency 50. Expand the image in such a way that shadow is
just a little bit visible outside of hexagons. See image below.

While drop shadow object is selected right click on it and select Send to
Back.
You can add additional elements according to your needs.
Same techniques can be easily adopted if you use letters or numbers for
frames instead of hexagons in your design.
Click on Elements tab (button) on the left side menu. Search for Frames
numbers or Frames letters. These useful elements are free and you can
add them to your design, however you are limited with single font.

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 16
NEON SLICE TEXT EFFECT

Text and images are most common design elements and having the ability
to manipulate them according to your needs is most important skill for any
designer.
Text effects come in many forms and shapes. In this tutorial you will learn
how to create neon slice text effect.

You will make image you see above, but it is good practice to start with
two pages and use first page to follow along but in the same time use
second page to experiment by changing text, colors and effects.
As I said before I usually start with IG post design size but you can start
with what ever size you want.
Click on empty page and from top menu change background color to black.
Type letter T on keyboard to introduce text field and type your word, in my
case it is sensequotes, my Instagram account handle.
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For text font I will choose Anton. This font will make the slice look a little
better but feel free to choose a font you like. Set font size to 150. Make
sure text covers most of the page from left to right. Set white for font
color.
Move the text to the center of the page. You will know it is in the center
when both central horizontal and vertical guides appear.
Click on the text again to select it and use rotation handle below to rotate
it for 90 degrees.
When you are done download PNG file of the page. Click on Download in top
right corner, for file type select PNG, select appropriate page and click on
download button. Remember where this file is on your computer.
Click on Uploads tab (button) in the left menu, click Upload media button
and find previously downloaded image on your computer.
When you are finished uploading go back to your page click on the text
again and rotate it again in starting position, at 0 degrees.
Now let's add uploaded image into the game.
Click on Elements tab (button) in the left menu. In the search box type
'Frame letters' and press Enter. Locate letter I and drag it to the page.

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Go back to uploads and drag your uploaded image onto the frame.

Click to select smaller word, rotate it and scale it to similar size as the
bigger sensequotes word.
Place the smaller word just a litle bit under bigger one, like on image below.

Now double click on frame box to open photo editing mode and move the
photo up. Click Done button in the top menu and move frame box so it
covers lower part of the other word.
Type letter L on keyboard to introduce line, set color of the line to be same
as background (in this case black) and set line weigth to 15.

46
Expand the line left and right to cover entire page and make sure you place
it just at the border between two words. That's your slice. If you want you
can move lower word just a little bit on the right or on the left for a
different effect.
Select lower word, click on Adjust button in top menu and set Blur to 4.
Select upper word, click on Effects in top menu, click Neon. Set Intensity
50 (it should already be at that value) and change color in top menu to blue
(or experiment with other colors).
Download your design.

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 17
PLACE PHOTO INSIDE TEXT

'How can I place single photo inside letters' is very common question
among Canva beginners. In this tutorial you will learn how to do that in
most efficient way.
There are few limitations in Canva when it comes to letters photo frame.
Since this technique uses Frames, currently there is only one collection of
letters, only single font you can use directly.
Here is the final design you are going to make.

48
Start with new design, use desired dimensions.
Click on the Photos tab (button) in the left side menu. Inside search box
type mountain top and find appropriate photo. I'm using free photo from
Stephan Seeber. Place it on your page.
You will also need the same photo with background sky removed. If you
have PRO account remove the background inside Canva, if not use one of
the free online services like remove.bg
Now place that photo above first photo. Scale and crop them both so they
look like photo below. Refer to previous tutorials on how to scale and crop
images in Canva.

When you double click on bottom image and you enter photo editing mode,
make sure the entire photo covers top mountain too and entire space
below. This will ensure all letters are inside photo boundary.
In the left side menu click on the Elements tab (button) and in the search
field type Frames letters.
Find individual letters you need and place them on canvas. You will need to
scale them down a little bit. Also use Group option and than Position from
top menu to align letters on the page.

49
Zoom in to make letters same height. While you move scale handles guides
will appear in the moment when letters are aligned. That's your signal to
drop the handle and that letters are aligned.

You will now place photo from below into every letters above.
Click to select bottom image. Click ALT on keyboard and drag the photo
onto letters T. When you double click on letter T you will see that photo is
smaller than we need.

Expand this small photo to cover all letters (see next page).
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As you can see, you need to place mountain top somewhere in the middle
of the letters. Also here, it's convenient that you can place this small peak
inside letter T to serve you as a cue where to position other photo letters.
Use that trick whenever your can since it can be confusing to place photos
just in the way you want them.
It is just the matter of patience to repeat the same process with other
letters.
If you are satisfied with letters, let's finish this design. Click T on
keyboard and type Adventures text. Choose Apricots font size 124 and
color Lime. Add darker background color and place rectangle with color
#c2b59b behind the mountains. Set rectangle transparency to 30.

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Add few travel related objects. I used suitcase and map from sketchify
user and europe map stamp from iconsy user. Don't forget to send the
stamp to the back, behind the mountain.
You can also add drop shadow to the text. It can be done in few ways, here
is simple one.
Copy frame letter T. Place the copy above original. In top menu click Adjust
while letter is selected. Set brightness to -50 and blur to 50. Move the
letter 5 places (arrow key) to the right and 5 places down. Send it behind
the original letter and you have simple drop shadow. Repeat for every
frame letter.
For Adventures text, copy it, select Lift effect and change color to black.
Send to back and move it few places right and down. Finished.

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 18
REFLECTION EFFECT

There are many things you can do in Canva but Canva also has many
limitations. Even some simple things you can do in Inkscape or Illustrator
like text skew effect is impossible in Canva (for now at least).
That's why Canva designers must find creative ways to achieve certain
things.
One common effect often found in many designs is reflection effect.
In this chapter you will learn how to achieve reflection effect in two ways.
I'm sure there are other ways to do it out there and I'm encouraging you to
try and find your own way with this problem and others. That's the best
way to learn - to practice and try things on your own.

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For first variation, choose your desired photo and place it on your page. I'm
using New York image from Pixabay. Crop the photo so it occupies top half
of the page.
There are two things going on
here. First thing is image
reflection and second thing is
letters reflection.
In this design letters are
actually elements not text.
Letters are provided by
Sparklestroke Global so it's a
little bit of a hack to use
elements but it can be done and
there are more free 3D letters
online for your designs and it's
a good thing to learn this
technique.
Click on the photo to select it. Hold ALT key on the keyboard and drag the
photo copy down. While copy is selected on top menu click on Flip and then
Flip vertical option.
Move the lower photo and crop it to make it look like reflection. You can
leave it like so if you like and skip next part, but if you have some rainy
streets photo or something like that I'll show you how to make the
reflection look more like it is water reflection.

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Click on image to select it. In top menu select edit. Choose BadTV and then
Rewind. Click again on Rewind to change settings.
Choose noise 0.25 and fine distort 1. For everything else select lowest
values possible. Click Apply button at the bottom when finished to apply
the effect.
On the left side menu select Elements tab (button) and inside search box
on top type '3d letters'. There are many options there, some paid some
free. Actually there are much more paid ones, which is expected because

Canva is pushing you to use paid

elements, but that isn't such a
problem, you can find free 3D
letters online, take a look at
Fontspace for 3D category or
Freepic.
Here I'm using Hand Drawn Block
Retro letters by Sparklestroke
Global.
Choose your letters and place
them on the page.
Zoom in if you have to in order to
align the letters and place them
close together.
Select all letters and in top menu
click Group button to group the
letters.

Click on the group to select it or just right click on it, click copy and than
paste.
Now you have to flip the letters, but it will not work if letters are grouped,
it will flip only one letter, so you have to ungroup and flip every letter
individually. On top menu select flip > flip vertical. Do this for every
letters and place the letters just below original letters.
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Set transparency to 50%.

Second way to make a reflection in Canva allows you to use any font.
Simply type your letters and download them as image. Than remove the
background from the image and upload it back to Canva.
Finally flip the image and set transparency. Make sure you scale and place
the image properly.

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 19
SHATTER EFFECT

In this tutorial you will learn how to create so-called Shatter effect in
Canva. You can use Canva Free account or Pro.
I will first show you very basic example because it is important for you to
understand how this effect works in principal. No matter how complex final
design looks like, it always comes down to this basic example. After you
learn the basics it's easy to upscale same technique.
Start with new design, set any size.
Click C on keyboard to add circle. Change circle color to blue. Move the
circle a little bit on the right. It should look something like the image
below.

Next you need small rectangle. Click R on keyboard. Reduce rectangle size
and make sure it's a same color as your circle. Hold shift to make it a
square.
Copy it 6 times. That's right, just do it.
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Your design should look something like image below.

Now you get to play a little bit with those squares.

Move 3 square at the edge of the the blue circle on the left side. Use
rotation to place them with different angles. Other 3 square place outside
of the circle but close to first ones.
What you want to achieve is to look like there are parts of the circle that
got separated from it.
Finally change color of squares placed on the edge to white so the color
matches the background.

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That's the basis for every Shatter effect. Instead of simple blue circle you
can use whatever image you want. Instead of squares you will actually use
some more complex brushes (elements) to make the effect looks more
natural but you will always match edge parts with background color and
outside parts will match colors of image.
Let's try more complex example. Find photo of a person and remove its
background. I selected this jumping girl. I changed background color to
yellow, you can choose other colors as well. Do not use gradient or multi
color backgrounds because you will not be able to match those correctly.

On the left side menu click on Elements. Inside search box type splatter.
Choose element you see below or similar.

So girl represents blue circle from basic example and this element above
represents blue squares.
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You will do the same thing as in basic example. Change the color of the
brush to match yellow background color.
Place the element on the left side of the image. Copy the element and
move it a little bit. Rotate if needed. Repeat the process.
Try to copy the element as little times as you need because too many
elements on one design can slow down your computer.
When you are done you should get something like this:

Next copy the element one more time and match the color of the snickers.
Move the element on the left.
Copy it again and match the color of the skin. Move it and rotate. Scale.
Repeat this process as you go up. What you end up is nice looking Shatter
effect.

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Practice makes it perfect. Do not be afraid to experiment by changing
brush element. You can search for grunge or speckle etc.
Add additional design elements, text etc.

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 20
PIXEL STRETCH EFFECT

In this tutorial you will learn how to achieve Pixel stretch effect in Canva.
I will use the same photo from last chapter and expand the idea. In this way
you will have two effects applied on same design, which is common
practice. Sometimes, for some design elements you need to combine
several techniques to get desired result.

If you don't have your work from last chapter, you can start from
beginning. Place any photo on editor page. I suggest you choose photo with
some movement on it. In this way Pixel stretch effect will contribute more
to overall design impression.
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First you need to select the photo. I should mention how here is a good
idea to group together all other elements so they don't get in the way.
Select everything on the page with mouse select action or using CTRL + A
on keyboard (Windows). Than hold SHIFT key and click on the photo. In this
way photo is excluded from selection.
Click on Group button on top menu to group everything but the girl.

Now you can manipulate your photo without fear that you will mess things
up or move something you didn't wanted to move.
Select the photo and duplicate it. You can use right click Copy and Paste or
keyboard shortcuts CTRL + C and CTRL + V.
Duplicate will be placed just below and a little bit on the right from original
photo.
You may also want if you wish to reduce transparency of the original photo
and maybe even lock it. Use Transparency and Lock buttons on top menu to
achieve this. You can lock your group elements too.
This is not only to prevent accidental errors but also to clearly see what
you are doing while creating Pixel stretch effect.

63
Reduce left side of the image by dragging crop handle, like on image below.

Click on Effects on top menu and choose Pixel from Pixelate.

Click again same button to edit properties.

64
In the properties panel change Horizontal Pixels to value 1 and Vertical
Pixels to value 200.

Place your pixels on the right place and move them to back by using right
mouse click and choosing Send to Back.
You can unlock original photo and bring Transparency back to 100.

Copy original photo one more time and reduce duplicate so that only the
shoe is visible.

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Repeat the process as before, except in this case I used value 2 for
Horizontal Pixels because it works better for me. Depending on your photo
it may be 1 or 2 for you.
I didn't want any empty space between pixelated images and right edge, so
I also moved entire design on the right.

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 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.

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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.

How can I include my e-mail hyperlink to my PDF file?

Add text user can click to send you an email, for example "send me an e-
mail message". Select this text and in the top menu on the right click link
button (next to transparency button).
In the Enter link field type "mailto:[email protected]" and click
Apply.
Now when you download your design as PDF file and user clicks on the text
"send me an e-mail message" default e-mail application starts with your e-
mail address already entered.

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

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 CANVA HIDDEN GEMS

Canva has a lot of amazing free graphics you can use in your projects.
However sometimes it's not easy to find them. In this chapter I will give
you a list of some of them.
How to access those resources? Type the code provided in search box and
you will get all available graphics from the same contributor.
brand:BADeGZOX6Sc

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brand:BADeGUxJios

brand:BADPSfoNnvM

brand:BAD3biU4bQA

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brand:BABj9f0X1bg

brand:BAAMOuJH0Ec

71
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.
© All right reserved
version 1.11 - April 2021.
DOWNLOAD FREE
DICTIONARY