6 Easy Canva Design Tips + Tricks Every Blogger Should Know About

Canva can be an amazing design tool for any online business owner.

However, when I first started using Canva I felt really limited. I remember making a babysitter info printable and I just wanted to make a simple LINE that didn’t have any fancy things on the end of it.. just a simple line!

Over the years I’ve come up with tons of tricks for Canva and since then I’ve been able to create everything from full workbooks, journals, course slide decks, and so much more using this tool. No more feelings of limitations!

It just takes a little creative thinking!

I have an awesome audience of people that love Canva and a great Facebook group of bloggers invested in mastering their design skills. The benefit of this is I know when people have frequent questions about how to do certain things!

This post is about the most COMMON questions I get about designing in Canva and the tricks for making the program even easier to use and more versatile for any blogger 🙂

Trick #1: Copy and Paste

This is easily the most common thing that’s asked: how do you copy and paste between different designs.

Side note: currently you can only do this in Canva 1.0 but I’m REALLY HOPING they change this about 2.0 and add that feature. That’s totally a deal breaker for me, I need to copy and paste between designs! I do it ALL the time! I love to mix and match my templates so designing a product takes half the time!

Anyway, copying and pasting is super easy.

First, you just click off to the side and drag your mouse over whatever you want to copy.

Note: If you accidentally select more objects then you meant to, you can hold the shift key down and click on anything you want to de-select.

Then, use your keyboard shortcuts for copy (Ctrl/Command+C).

Next, open whatever document you want to be able to paste this into.

You can also paste it in the same document (on the same, or different, pages). I do this a lot when I’m creating a workbook so that I can keep the border, layout, and headers consistent. This also helps me design much faster.

To paste, simply use your keyboard shortcuts again (Ctrl/Command+V).

Super simple!

Also, the header templates in that picture example are available for free in our design library along with a bunch of other Canva templates and design tools. Click here to get the password!

Trick #2: Downloading just one page

So, I usually get this question most when it comes to my social media templates such as my pin templates. This also comes in handy when you want to save a cover of a workbook separately as a jpg so that you can re-upload it into Canva for mockup images or if you want to upload it to a cover generator like myecovermaker. Either way, this is another really easy trick!

Simply look to the right of the page (or pin) that you want to download to find the “page number”.

Once you find that number, click on “download” and then type in the number of the page to download (see below)

Interested in social media templates? There’re free ones in my design library. Plus, you can find pin templates in our Social Media Template Toolkit or The Complete Blogger Template Toolkit (Canva formats), AND you can also find even more pin templates in both Canva + Adobe Photoshop format in my Graphic Design Workshop.

Trick #3: Selecting an object BEHIND another object without moving it out of the way

This one is a game changer for SO many people (it was for me!).

Have you ever tried to click on something and there’s a text box or object in the way and you end up clicking the wrong thing? Yeah, you’re not alone.

But there’s a super simple trick for this.

The command key! (or ctrl key for PC users)

Simply click on the object. If something else gets selected, hold down the command (or ctrl) key and click again (WHILE holding that key). This will select the object that’s behind that first object.

If the one you’re trying to select is way in the back, you might have to keep holding command (or ctrl) and clicking. Each time you click while holding that key, it’s going to select the next object in the back.

This is hard to show on a screenshot but check out my facebook live on Canva Tips + Tricks. This one is at 07:58 of the video.

Trick #4: Moving objects just a teeny tiny bit

I get this question a LOT in regards to positioning text just right so that it’s perfectly lined up. When you move the text boxes around with your mouse sometimes it’s hard to get it just right.

But if you click just outside of the text box, you’ll notice that there’s a little cross arrow that looks like this:

When that symbol appears, click again. You’ll know it worked because you will not be able to type in that text box anymore.

Note: This is only necessary when trying to move a text box. If you want to move a shape or other object, you only need to click once.

Finally, use your arrow keys on your keyboard to move the object just 1px. It’s incredibly easy to get it lined up just right doing it that way!

Side note: you can also hold down the shift key and use the arrow keys if you want to move the object 10px. You can go back to that video in the previous tip and watch me do this at 09:08.

Trick #5: Making an object appear to have a shadow

There’s a couple steps to this.

First, add your image that you would like to have a shadow, then duplicate it.

Then, with the duplicated image, turn the brightness down, the contrast up, and increase the blur.

Next, turn the transparency down and move the object to the back.

Last, position it just right behind the original object so that it looks like a shadow.

This is a pretty simple trick that can give your object more pop!

Trick #6: Creating a project that’s larger than 30 pages

Anyone that has tried to use Canva to create a large ebook or workbook has eventually hit that 30-page limit.

Don’t panic! Simply start a new project, use copy and paste to move over your layout for consistency and then keep going.

As a mac user, I use preview to merge my pages. (Don’t worry, I’ll talk about PC users in one minute!)

Simply open each document in preview. If you don’t already see the thumbnail views on the side, go to “View” and choose “Thumbnails”

Next, drag and drop the pages you want to add from the second document into the first one. If you want to select multiple pages you can do this by clicking on the first one, holding shift and then clicking on the second. This will select all the pages in between and you can drag and drop all of them at once.

You can also reorder pages by draging and dropping the thumbnails in the order that you want.

For PC users, there is this awesome free online tool called ilovepdf.com. You do NOT have to download anything to your computer and it is 100% free. Simply upload both of your documents and then choose the “merge PDF” option.

Side note: I often use ilovepdf for turning PDFs from courses I take into word documents so that I can type right in the document.

There are so many simple Canva Design Tips & Tricks!

I love figuring out those little hacks, and there are so many more I could literally spend all day doing this!

Check out my FREE Canva 101 mini-course for even more tips and tricks! Click below to sign up for free!